runmakitarun | Into the storm

Entry tags:

oom,
war in bahamut

Into the storm

As the last of the team files through the door Makita closes it firmly behind herself and leads the way over to the window. Down in the square below twelve people move purposefully through the snow.

The six women are mostly unremarkable. One stands out as being exceptionally tall, one is short enough to almost look like a child, and hair of various colors and lenghts and styles can be seen escaping from their warm hats. The six men, however, stand out. The smallest is six and a half feet tall and looks to weigh at least 270 pounds. All twelve of them move with the smooth grace of practiced killers.

Makita doesn't bother whispering as she points them out, "See how they move in pairs? Each sorceress has her Guardsman a few paces behind her. You can see that even in a group they're thinking in twos. When we hit them, I want us to concentrate on splitting as many pairs as we can. They operate much less efficiently when their teams are broken up."

"There's another square like this a few blocks down. If they're headed of our HQ, then they'll have to go through it. If we move fast we can get there first and set up." She shoulders her rifle and looks at her team again, "Let's keep it fast and quiet."

So saying, Makita leads the way out the door, heading toward the rear fire escape for the building.

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Despite the sudden outburst of violence, one pair of Reds manages to get through the entire initial ambush untouched. The sorceress and her guardsman are close to solid cover and move immediately into an ordered withdrawal. The guardsman fires a few bursts into the plaza in order to try to suppress any ambushers, but he's mostly concentrating on covering his charge as they run north, mostly managing to keep cover between themselves and the plaza itself.

Mary Anne follows at an angle, keeping behind and to the left of the pair. She uses what cover she can, but is mostly concentrating on speed at the moment.

If she can catch them, she can get them pinned down. Letting them go isn't an option.

The Reds draw their troops from all over what was once a massive empire. Sometimes that means that their troops are extremely well-suited to operate in a given set of terrain, but sometimes it means that troops are utterly out of place.

It's that second option this time, and it's pretty clear from the way that both the sorceress and her guardsman move through the snow that they're not used to moving through the stuff. It slows them down despite the efforts they put into speed.

The guardsman keeps shooting looks over his shoulder, looking for pursuit. His eyes widen and his mouth opens to yell a warning when his foot catches on some unseen obstruction in the snow. He has excellent balance for such a big man, so he doesn't fall down, but the brief stumble slows him and his charge down just a bit while he catches his balance.

The stumble is enough and more than enough. Mary Anne closes the distance a little further, then opens fire. She sweeps the gun in an arc, aiming at what--for the guardsman--is mid-back height.

She doesn't slow down as she moves in, just uses her momentum to circle around them, reaching down to loosen a knife in its sheath.

Guardsmen are big and well armored, and Mary Anne's fire spalls off the heavy metal plates covering his hailer. But big and well-armored doesn't mean he doesn't feel the impact. The guardsman had just recovered his balance, and the sudden shove from behind causes him to lose it again.

His sorceress turns, eyes scanning to find their pursuer as her eyes and hands glow with crackling blue energy.

She snarls a curse under her breath. It'll have to be headshots or nothing from here on out. She scrambles to complete her half-circle, firing haphazardly in the direction of the guardsman's head and ending up on the right side of the pair.

She's watching the guardsman for now, to see if any of her shots connected, but she's not ignoring the sorceress--especially not that energy.

Even the best troops tend to be surprised by unexpected ambush, but you know those troops are the best because they recover quickly. The guardsman and sorceress have gotten their feet back under them and are now setting up for a counter-attack.

The sorceress arcs a wide bolt of electricity in Mary Anne's direction, more to make her keep her head down than to actually take her out. The guardsman winces slightly as one of the incoming bullets creases his cheek, drawing a line of blood.

But then he's unlimbered the massive steel Hook hanging across his back, and the massive metal spear spins in front of him in a blur which deflects the rest of the incoming shots.

Mary Anne takes an extra leap to get out of the way of the lightning; it singes the bottom edge of her coat.

She can't keep her jaw from dropping just a little at the sight of the Hook.

"Son of bitch."

A knife slips from its sheath and into her hand, flipped so that she might throw it if there's the opportunity. Can't use grenades this close, so she keeps firing at the guard and scrambles to complete the circle; she's hoping she'll find a chink in his defenses, or that damned shield of his will slip or she'll be able to get behind him before he can fully turn--anything, anything at all, but she must be fast.

And she is fast, faster than either of the Reds really expect. Especially given the terrain and the weather. The guardsman had his weight set for her to move in a straight line. While the hook can move to stay between Mary Anne and himself, the guardsman isn't actually able to keep up. That means that if she keeps her current arc he'll lose sight of her briefly as he tries to rebalance himself to turn.

Of course that leaves the sorceress, who's still in position to keep Mary Anne in sight, and she's lifting her sidearm in her left hand while another crackle of lightning arcs out from the device in her right.

The circle closes and she's got a clear, beautiful shot at the back of the guardsman's neck.

She slows down a bit as she fires, to be sure she doesn't miss her opportunity, even as she knows she'll probably take fire from the sorceress for it.

The hook spins in a circle with her, but without being able to see where Mary Anne is, the guardsman is just guessing about where to position it. And he guesses wrong. As he collapses silently, dead before he hits the ground, the hook goes spinning off, skipping across the snowy ground.

But while Mary Anne lines up her shot, the sorceress manages to get a good track on her. Her sidearm, identical to the weapons Makita carries, blazes with automatic fire, and lightning crackles near her fingers as she prepares to loose another arc of electicity.

Mary Anne scrambles into motion again, but her momentum from earlier has petered out; bullets rake along her shoulder and her face twists in a snarl. She throws herself to the ground, rolling out of the line of fire and behind the guardsman's body.

Then, she's back on her feet, firing at the sorceress as she rises; the shots might not break the shield, but maybe they'll distract her from the knife that's left Mary Anne's hand and is spinning for her throat.

Now that the shock has begun to wear off, the sorceress doesn't even flinch at the incoming bullets. She knows the shield will hold. Which means she has enough attention to see the knife coming and duck to the side. She still catches the edge of the blade on her cheek and winces a bit, but her face is subsumed with rage.

Whoever these people are, they killed her friends. The killed her partner. She can at least guarantee that one dies. Her smile turns vicious as she rips off another burst.

Mary Anne knows that smile; she's seen it in the mirror a time or two. It's not good news.

Still, she's learned a thing or two in the brief exchange. She lets the rifle slide out of her grip, her right hand already moving up and over her shoulder--reaching for something that shouldn't be there but suddenly is--to draw her sword.

She feints to one side, then dashes to the other, hoping to close with the sorceress before the girl can full track her movements. She ignores the burn in her shoulder and the chatter of the gun, all her attention focused on the sorceress' face.

The sorceress has been at war for a long time. She had already taken in Mary Anne's equipment and knew that there was nothing there that was a serious threat to her. But that was when Mary Anne didn't have a sword. Because she didn't.

It's the sudden appearance of a weapon that shouldn't be there more than it is the sudden shift of direction that causes that split second of hesitation. That oh-so-fatal split second.

It's all she needs.

The sword catches her square through the chest, clipping lungs and heart on its path through the sorceress' body. The blade goes in up to the hilt and Mary Anne is standing nose to nose with the other woman in the end.

She watches the light in the sorceress' eyes flicker and begin to fade. This is war and she will not apologize.

Still.

"You did very well," she murmurs, and the light goes out.

She draws the sword free and the woman's body collapses in the snow. Mary Anne wipes the blade clean on her coat, then shoulders her rifle and heads back towards the plaza.

She keeps the sword out, just in case.

The comm-link crackles slightly as Makita's voice comes through, "Makita here, everybody check in (http://runmakitarun.livejournal.com/7766.html)."

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Into the storm

To the north

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