As the overwatch vehicles barrels through the wastelands of a forgotten city, Dante is realizing the gravity of the situation. Commander Preston said something about the locations of Krix outposts. Those probably aren't so easy to come across. Is the information worth sacrificing the lives of highly skilled operators?
“Hold here!” Cassie yells out to the driver, setting a waypoint on everyone’s HUD that is positioned atop a collapsed skyscraper.
With a sudden jerk, the vehicle mounts the sloped face of the building, hauling against the mud that’s buried its exterior. With little effort, the vehicle reaches the waypoint and drifts to a stop. Without delay, the vehicle locks in, slowly lifting the wheels off the ground as the support beams lift into place. Shortly after this, the ceiling of the vehicle opens and all of their seats rise up above the roof of the van.
Each of the recruits are startled as the vehicle turns into an overwatch center, with monitors in front of each member and a clear view of a large portion of the landscape.
“Switching to over watch,” Cassie says as the colors on Dante’s HUD switch to Orange. Without much delay, the orange outline of four soldiers appears far in the distance, and deep below a mountain of rubble. The blue waypoint set by the squad of operators blinks ahead of them, at the base of the skyscraper.
“Overwatch engaged,” Cassie calls out.
“Talk to me O2,” Commander Preston orders.
“Are you- position, Sir?”
_Debugging concludes: “Are you in position, Sir?”
“Affirmative,” Commander Preston confirms.
“Copy that, Commander. Running the package to you,”
The four outlines blink off and a sudden noise erupts in the comms as a massive vibration ripples through the area, the shockwave even traveling through the overwatch vehicle in the distance. Briefly after the initial burst, an amalgamation of rubble and buildings suddenly cave into the ground, like a massive manhole swallowing a portion of the landscape.
“O2?!” Commander Preston panics.
He continues calling out for the squad as all of the recruits wait in angst, avoiding the thought of the operators having died. Or worse, dying with the data.
Shit. Dante’s mind worries as he anxiously taps his foot.
“Mission Control, have you got a read on O2?” Preston asks.
“Negative, Commander,” Mission control responds amongst a sea of noise. “Should we prepare to infiltrat-”
“Negative,” Preston cuts off mission control. “I'm not giving them any more of us,”
Everyone glares at the rubble with desperate eyes, squinting with hopes to see the slightest hint of O2’s plan coming to fruition. But, as the fog drops and the rubble comes back into view, the stillness of the area sends a discomforting message.
Cassie sighs, aggressively rubbing her forehead as Mission Control says, “It looks like the mission's a bust,”
Commander Preston sighs alongside her, still glaring at the last position of O2. “Let’s mo-”
“I’ve got one!” Cassie yells as she takes off her headphones and shifts the communications console away from her. With a few swipes of her hand, she shares the orange outline of a lone soldier, crawling his way to the waypoint. “Dante, Nadia. On me!” Cassie yells as she leaps out of the vehicle.
Dante and Nadia both hesitantly exit the vehicle behind Cassie, trying to keep up with her as she slides down the side of the building. “His vitals are reading positive,” She yells in excitement.
“Be advised, there are hostiles on O2’s six,” Commander Prestons voice warns over the comms.
“Copy that,” She says, “Keep up you two!” She adds as her feet touch the ground and she starts sprinting in the targets direction.
Nadia leaps from a few meters above the ground to catch up, barrel rolling safely as she lands behind Cassie and Dante follows suits- catching up with them and seeing the targets outline is just over five hundred metres away amongst the ground level smog of the explosion. Reducing vision to a few metres ahead of them.
Cassie raises her fist, and the two recruits stop in their tracks. She reaches behind her back and pulls out a scanning grenade. Upon pulling the pin and tossing it into the thick grey mist, a brief explosion pulses a laser through the area- immediately highlighting a swell of over twenty units marked in red.
Dante’s heart drops as he immediately wonders why Cassie would bring him here if he isn't ready yet. He’s still learning to deal with one target- twenty is insane. The red dots slowly begin to fade one by one- the Outer Wall System is struggling to track the targets through the smoke.
Without a sound, a few lasers beam through the mist- barely whizzing past Dante and Nadia.
“They firing blind?” Dante panics.
“Who says they're blind?” Cassie responds before stepping forward.
As her foot touches the ground, another laser barrels through the smoke and Cassie slightly tilts her head to dodge it.
“Dante, use eighty percent of you mana on a shield,” She orders.
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“Eighty percent?” Dante panics, wondering how he’ll fight with only the remaining twenty.
“That’s an order!”
Dante immediately casts a curved energy wall ahead of the three of them-
_HP: 100
_MANA: 20% REMAINING
_DETAILS: 16/80
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 100%
A few lasers deflect off the shield, and Dante can feel the intensity of the blasts chip away at the shield strength quicker than any of the blasts at the academy.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 84%
“So, they can see us but not the target,” Cassie says curiously.
“I don't think my shield is strong enough,” Dante says.
“Then let’s move!” She says as she starts jogging towards the target, forcing Nadia and Dante in a jog as well.
_TARGET DISTANCE: 400m
_TARGET DISTANCE: 300m
Without a sound, Cassie’s energy blades emerge from her arms and her head darts around, searching amongst the grey smoke surrounding them. Out of the fog, a mechanical beast like that of a giant spider lashes a claw from the grey- striking the shield and sending a heavy vibration through Dante’s body before it disappears back into the cloud.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 61%
Cassie darts through the shield, exposing herself to the abyss when the creature steps up again, raising three claws to strike Cassie- but she is much to quick, and the creature suddenly splits into two when Cassie steps behind the shield. Avoiding the sudden burst of lasers that collides with it.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 43%
_TARGET DISTANCE: 200m
“Nadia, you're up,” Cassie says, pinging the waypoint of the target.
“What do you mean?” Nadia asks in a panic.
“Grab the target with your whips,” She says sternly.
“We’re too far,” She stammers.
“Another fifty metres?” Cassie asks.
“Uhh, sure,” Nadia shakes her head.
Cassie dashes forwards with her energy blades, swiping them into the air as two spherical machines fly into view. One of them gets a shot off but shortly after it, both machines drop to the floor in multiple pieces.
I can't even see her attacks!
Three more flying spheres emerge, firing in their direction and Cassie successfully takes down one of them before stepping behind the shield for cover.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 32%
These one's keep firing at the shield, sending a gust of concern through Dante as he realizes they've been focusing on taking down the shield. Multiple beams emerge from the distance too, all hitting the shield at the same point.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 20%
Cassie darts at the bots while they-re firing and before they can turn to her they both crash to the ground.
“Now!” Cassie yells, pinging the target once again as the orange outline of a soldier glows amongst the smoke filled area.
_TARGET DISTANCE: 120m
Nadia takes a deep breath as the energy whips drop from the PEG’s around her arms and she steps right up to the edge of the shield before twirling the whip into a lasso above her head and casting it out into the gray.
“Got him!” She confirms as she tightens her grip and starts reeling the whips back into her arms.
“Dante, retreat,” Cassie orders.
Dante slowly starts walking backward, shielding the lasers that continue converging at it's center as Nadia reels in the surviving member of O2. As the orange outline gets closer and closer, Cassie continues scanning the area before locking her eyes straight ahead of them.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 12%
The soldiers body emerges past the shield, and Nadia helps him to his feet as they continue jogging back to the vehicle.
“He’s taken serious injuries,” She says as he groans in pain.
“Just get back to th-” Cassie stops in her tracks, and stares ahead of them again. The lasers have stopped too, and an air of discomfort washes over the areas as it falls to silence.
“Sending evac,” Commander Preston says, only adding to Nadia and Dante’s discomfort.
The sound of heavy, mechanical footsteps start chugging in their direction as the sound picks up pace- growing louder and louder.
Cassie empowers her blades the moment a large, humanoid robot jumps out of the smoke and busts Dante’s shield into pieces with a punch to the weak point.
_SHIELD DESTROYED
“Ah!” Dante yells as a surge of pain penetrates the arm he used to cast the shield.
_HP: 73 (-27)
_NOTE: Sustained muscular damage to dominant arm.
_MANA: 20% REMAINING
_DETAILS: 16/80
A sudden swath of nearly a dozen bots dash from behind the humanoid machine. In a panic, Dante uses the remaining mana to cast another shield around them that immediately sustains damage.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 64%
_HP: 73 (-27)
_MANA: 0% REMAINING
_DETAILS: 0/800
_NOTE: Combat environment detected- Regenerate mana ASAP.
“Keep moving,” Cassie yells out as she faces off with the humanoid robot.
Dante and Nadia keep running back to the vehicle as the occasional glance over his shoulders gives Dante the impression that Cassie isn't handling that robot as easily as the others. In fact, this ones managed to strike at her multiple times, even prompting her into a defensive stance.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 48%
A support vehicle drifts in front of Dante and Nadia with a back door open and the gattling gun on top of it fires into the smoke to provide them with cover fire. As they enter the vehicle with the O2 survivor, Dante sends his shield towards Cassies blue outline and without much time, he notices her run in their direction, using the shield as cover.
_SHIELD STRENGTH: 26%
“Good job, recruits,” The O2 soldiers says.
With a concerned look on her face, Nadia looks back at him and asks “Where’s the rest of your squad?” before Cassie dives into the backseat of the evac truck.
_SHIELD DISABLED
“Go, Go, Go!” Cassie orders as the door shuts and the vehicle launches out of the area.
“They’re Zo’an,” The O2 soldier responds.