Battle of Red Canyon III

 

POV Luc

He hit the soldier on the head for the last time, and his blood and brains exploded across the metal wall. The dim, flickering, red light and the slowly blaring alarm turned the scene into horror fuel. On the other side of the hallway, Chris snapped the final enemy's neck. The two of them stood knee-deep in mangled corpses, skulls and ribcages crushed, blood and organs everywhere.

"Phew," Luc breathed, covered in blood from head to toe. "That was… fun."

The two of them had decimated an entire underground bunker that housed a regiment of enemy brawlers who would have been a problem to fight in close combat. Tearing through six feet of solid steel, Luc broke them out with his gauntlets, and they spilled out into the sunlight. A while away, they saw the flames and smoke rising from the destroyed barracks.

"Neo and Nyx completed their mission," Chris grinned. "They did a good job."

"Speak of the devil," Luc agreed, as he spied the two of them swinging down towards them on Neo's grappling hook.

 

"What happened to you?" Chris asked, looking at the bloody bandage on Nyx's shoulder that stretched down to the left side of her waist.

"I was impaled by an incredibly painful and molten hot harpoon," she said curtly. "I'm fine though."
"That Raiz Ignius guy was actually tougher than I thought," Neo admitted. "If he wasn't blown up, then he might've been a problem for even you, Luc."

"Guys," Luc said, looking the other direction. "Uh… guys?"

They turned to see thousands of soldiers running their direction, shouting.

"AAAH let's dip!" Chris yelled, and they barrelled towards the east side of the fortress, where the top three had entered.

"Let's move on to the next stage of the plan," Neo said. "Let's make HM's defences go boom."

 

POV Tentee

"WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

Hundreds of guards were attacking him, but they were no match for his incredible firepower. He hefted the Orphan Obliterator 4000 and rained hellfire on his enemies. They'd come to him in droves of assault buggies, but now they were just serving as great projectiles to send flying with his bombs.

"DIE BITCHES!!!"

Beside him, Swifty rattled into the enemy hordes with his heavy machine gun, the barrel rotating rapidly. Windscreens shattered and guards twirled as they were hit with tens of bullets in seconds.

"WHAT WAS THE MISSION AGAIN!?!?!?" Dobo yelled over the noise.

"DESTROY THE AMMO DEPOT ON THE EAST SIDE!!"

"YEAH, WE DONE THAT!"

The giant smoking crater in the middle of the fortress was good enough proof.

 

POV Kremi

Kremi bit his fingernail, and kept banging on his keys.

"Uggggh," he groaned. "This shitty AI is so annoying."

"Tell me about it," Rain spat, gritting her teeth as another bullet hitting the rock where she had just been half a second ago forced her to duck down again. "There's a nest of snipers and I've taken down about half of them, but they're still annoying as hell."
"This thing's deployed an adaptive firewall," he grumbled. "I can't reach HM's inner defence systems if I can't get past this, and Sword will be faced with a battle with both the guards and hundreds of missiles and bullets from turrets being fired his way. Not to mention all the gates that he needs to open."

First it shut him out. Then it reconfigured itself to destroy thirty viruses all at once. It blocked him at every turn. Kremi cursed under his breath as a horde of viruses and code in retaliation almost imploded his machine, and he nearly broke his fingers on his keyboard as he barely managed to defend against it.

"Alright fine. If you wanna play dirty, let's play dirty, you fucking computer program."

 

POV Sword

"We're goddamn getting nowhere," I grumble, diving out of the way and pushing Airo in front of me as another explosion goes off.

"We've gotten like half way," Elemental corrects.

We're at a position where we have vaulted the Third Wall without being seen. But now, in the area on the other side, we're faced with option but to break through into the inner fortress through its front entrance, which is heavily armoured and covered in guards. A group of snipers is attacking us as well, and we're pinned behind a makeshift barrier.

"What the hell is Kremi doing!?" I demand, as a group of guards begins to charge towards to us.

Fortunately, a barrage of chrona bullets mows the front few down and the rest retreat, ducking down after noticing the presence of a sniper.

"Nice one, 038," Airo says into his comms. "You needa do something about those snipers though."
"I know," Rain replies. "Give me a bit. Kremi will be done soon too. He's going about juking or whatever."

"That idiot," I mutter.

Risking looking over the edge of my barrier, I quickly scan the building we're attacking - the frontmost building in front of the main keep where Kain Voss is supposed to be. Then, I see it - an entry point - that's almost impossible.

"I have an idea," I say. "It'll probably only work if one of us goes though."
"Spit it out," Airo says. "Let's hear it."

"No time," I say. "Make your own judgement."

And with that, I sprint out from cover and peel towards the canyon wall.

 

Sniper fire thuds around me, but I jet boost up the side of wall using the new thrusters on our heels, reaching the rocks.. Cannons and guards lock on to me, and countless missiles and bullets whistle at my ass - though it's pretty simple how to survive in this situation. Don't think, and let instinct take over. Side-running over the canyon wall, I weave in and out of explosions and gunfire and my target rushes up to meet me - a command tower at the back of the main keep, usually a great vantage point but now just a weakness to exploit. My legs run out of momentum and I drop down onto the wall right in front of it, landing feet first on a guard's face and crushing it underfoot. I race past the soldiers who barely have time to react, slashing through several with my sword, smashing my foot down to the ground and preparing a giant leap upwards. The strength rushes into my legs and I bound upwards, boosted by my heel thrusters, straight towards the glass walls of the command tower. Equipping my shield, I smash straight through the glass and roll inside, coming up on my feet to see a group of ten or so officers, staring at me wide eyed in alarm.

"You're all already dead," I tell them.

Then I hurl my shield, and gripping the long chain is attached to, I swing it around like a wrecking ball and tear through the room and the officers.

"Woah," Airo says over comms. "That was impressive."

"Now we have two entry points," I tell them, wiping some blood off my shield and striding towards the door that led deeper into the fortress. "Break through at the front door, and tell everyone else to meet me in the innermost keep."

"Got it, boss," Airo replies. "Don’t die in there."

 

POV Leon

Leon mowed down the final row of enemies and wiped the sweat off his brow, lowering his giant repeater rifle.

"Don't I get any backup?" he demanded into his comms device. "Am I really supposed to hold back all these reinforcements myself?"

There was no response from Avoma's end.

Ugh… that grumpy son of a bitch…

He slumped on a nearby crate, surveying the piles of bodies around him. Blood ran down the side of his face and his left arm had been pierced by several pieces of shrapnel. He was covered in grime from head to foot and his uniform was Leon's job was stopping any reinforcements from rushing from the Second Wall to the Third Wall to make things difficult for the rest of the group, by stopping them at one of the two bridges between the two walls. Avoma, on the other hand, was the same but instead of being alone he had 018, Jon (from Luc's side) and his Giant Rock Lizard which had somehow got past the shield. He barely had to catch his breath when the next legion of soldiers, as well as two smaller mechs, appeared at the other end of the bridge.

"…fuck," he breathed. "Why couldn't anyone back me up? …well, not that I need it. Come on, you bastards."

 

The first mech came tromping at top speed along the bridge, heading straight for Leon, who loaded his rifle and pointed it straight at its heart. A small missile dislodged from the barrel of his gun and flew straight into its metal chest and exploded, fire rolling across the side of the bridge. Standing up in the flames, sparking and parts of its body melting, the mech whirred as it struggled to lift the intact gun on its right arm up to fire at Leon. However, he took aim and pounded the cockpit with bullets and the pilot inside cried out as they struck him throughout the body. The troops behind the mech hesitated, and Leon took the opportunity to rush forwards, and using the body of the mech as cover, let loose on the ranks before him, his rifle tearing through flesh and bone as he ignored the heat against his legs, the bullet thudding against his shield, and the stabs of intense pain as occasionally shots penetrated through to his flesh. Dozens of enemies were coming at him, wave after wave, hundreds of them climbing each other's corpses or using them as barriers.

"WHAT - THE - FUCK - IS - GOING - ON!?!?!?" Leon demanded, his finger numb from holding down the trigger. "AAAAAAH-"

A bullet pierced through the air, aiming straight for between his eyes, but he twisted at the last moment and blocked it with his shoulder, feeling a burning hot stab of pain tear through his enhanced muscles.

Shit!

As soon he stopped shooting, he lost his rhythm and before he knew it his gun was blasted out of his hands, and bullets pierced his ankle, thigh, other shoulder, wrist and one even grazed his ear, taking a chunk with it. He slumped down to one knee, and the soldiers stopped firing, starting their advance.

"So damn dramatic," Leon mumbled, before hitting his comms with his shoulder. "Hey, are you there or not!?"

"Oh, it's there alright," came Swono's reply, from Luc's team. "Just hit it and you can do the honours."

"It'd better work," Leon sighed. "Or I'm screwed."

He pulled out a small device from his belt. A detonator. The soldiers closest to him screeched to a halt and sensed the danger, lifting their weapons. Too late. Leon flipped them off and thumbed the switch.

"Bye."

And the whole bridge exploded, flames rushing along it towards Leon who promptly dropped the detonator and ran for it. At the last second, he dove out of the blast's range and collapsed on the floor, breathing hard as blood ran down his face and body.

"Still alive," he panted. "Barely. Someone bring me a fucking drink."

 

POV Angelia

Angelia ducked behind the tank that was rolling forwards, breathing out in relief. If she had moved half a second earlier she would have had a hole through her face - she was lucky she got away with just a stinging gash across her cheek.

"Shit, there's a sniper," she hissed, tapping her comms, stopping the bleeding with a small sliver of quartz.

Then something hit the ground on her right and an EMP blast rolled through the midline, which was slowly moving forwards towards the First Wall, to reinforce the Frontline that was still holding on against the hundreds of turrets pounding them.

"Ugh!"

Her comms were out, and she was only unscathed because she'd erected a circle of quartz around herself. Only one more method to get the info to command. She scribbled down 'sniper' on several shards of metal and hurled them at once, with as much strength as she could muster, across the battlefield. Instantly, bolts of chrona streaked through the air and blasted all but one of them out of the air. The final shard streaked through the sky and thudded into the ground at Ria's feet.

"And the rest is up to her," Angelia said.

Quartz crystals appeared on her hands as her eyes swept the First Wall, covered with flashes of cannons and attacks.

 

POV Rain

"038, come in," Sword said over comms, as he dashed through corridors, slaughtering his way through the garrison.

Rain, from her position next to Kremi, who was still cursing at the AI, replied.

"Yes?"

"You're up," he told her. "Sniper. Somewhere in the Third Wall."

Rain breathed out, and tied her long chocolate brown hair, which was spilling over her shoulders, back into a ponytail. Positioning her sniper, she tried to get an angle on the likely places a sniper would hide on the Third Wall, but she realized that her position was less than ideal and she would be forced to go down to near the Second Wall. She decided not to interrupt Kremi, who was sweating buckets, and instead turned to the other sniper perched a few rocks above her.

"So you're off, huh?" Loflo grinned.

Pharo Force's second best sniper, 019, Loflo. He too, just like Rain, served in the army and fought against the Skathers on the Southern Front as a captain of a squad - he was a famous and decorated soldier who was well respected by both his seniors and juniors, but he was inevitably injured during battle and forced to pull out from the frontlines, a year before was sent to the Facility and became 019.

"…take care of everyone when I'm having my duel," Rain told him, and she turned on her stealth mode and jumped from the cliffs.