Given the situation, the next move is clear. You can leave the unknown Hex to Takashi for now and deal with the others. But there's too much incoming fire from both of them. So you flash up an arrow, telling Tendou to move to the right. He hits the thrusters to slips away from another round of shots, and pulls close to the side of the factory. Good, this position gets you out of the Firebird's line of sight, at least for now.
There's less wiggle room for Tendou to dodge around the Thor's attacks without endangering the factory, but it's still better than getting pincered from multiple directions. And the Thor's shots are pretty steady, no feints or anything. So you start sounding a series of beeps in the cockpit to clue Tendou into the rhythm. He picks up on it immediately, jerking on the controls so you'll make quick, erratic movements just before each shot.
It helps you to shrug off more of the incoming fire, but it must take too much attention, because it ruins Tendou's own aim trying to return fire. That's fine, you decide. From off to your left, Wayne, Gardenia, and Mouse are all focusing on the Thor too.
You keep it up, keeping a close eye on the incoming damage that lands, displaying it for Tendou to see at a glance as he maintains his defensive maneuvers, while the others try to drill through the Thor's heavy armor.
And then the Firebird comes out of the factory, turning to focus its guns on you once more. You don't even need to flash up an alert, Tendou is already cursing, eyes wide. Your arms come up defensively, before the flash of phaser fire. The bursts of crackling yellow energy streak out and your frame rocks, the blasts tearing into you.
All at once, most of the armor on your arms is gone. Your heavier left arm took the worst of it, which is likely the only reason the right only suffered minor internal damage.
You give another sharp audio report and point an arrow straight at the Firebird, splashing 'Melee' all across the monitors, just long enough to kick Tendou into motion. He fires the thrusters, and you speed across the gap.
With another loud warning, his eyes dart to the Thor, lining up its next shot, and he desperately jerks to the side. The sudden lateral thrust nearly rips him out of his pilot seat, but with gritted teeth, he bears it.
Another heavy volley from the Firebird comes, far too close to dodge. The fire scatters all across your torso, battering your chest and shroud armor, just as you get in close. With one more quick dodge, you put the Firebird between you and the Thor, and it fires again, apparently before thinking better of it. The Firebird takes the attack across its back, stumbling a step, right in time for you to ram into it.
It doesn't even budge. Even though its a lightly armored attacker, the thing has two meters on you – and probably twenty tons of weight. Nevertheless, you shove an arm under its shroud, grabbing on tight. It flails, its long arms with its built in weapons lacking in up-close melee capability. The way it bashes them down across your shoulders and back isn't great for the armor there, but it's a world better than its heavy weapon fire.
“Phaser!” Tendou demands breathlessly, already starting to stab into the Firebird's midsection with the blades on your left wrist. They're partially melted from that earlier attack, and aren't doing any significant damage to the heavier armor around the cockpit.
As soon as the phaser is charged, he tries that, firing one shot after another. It does the job, burning through the armor, but it's a small, light weapon, and it's taking too much time. The firebird knees you hard, forcing you to stumble back. You hold on, but then it swings an arm down, with enough space that it crashes into your shoulder, and you lose your grip, toppling down on your back.
By the time Tendou recovers from getting thrown around, the Firebird has an arm leveled at you. Your own arm jerks up, firing your phaser at the same time. The streak of blue meets the dual yellow phasers, disrupting the attacks, but it's not enough to keep it from splashing all across your right side.
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Internal electrical damage starts to short out your phaser, but it recovers, and you fire again, directly into the barrels of its arm, which doesn't seem to fare as well, so it brings its other arm around, and you mirror it.
But this time, instead of a little, low power phaser, you have a rocket launcher.
The smaller and faster of the two frames, you shoot first, its phasers only going off in time to detonate the rocket right in front of its arm, which reels back from the impact, and gives you time to lurch up to your feet, slamming into the Firebird's chest again. This time, you draw your Kelpie, getting that jammed between the larger frame's shroud and cockpit.
Tendou squeezes, white knuckled on the trigger, the rapid fire burst laser weapon gets to work... slowly. Like your phaser, it's a rather small, lightweight weapon, trying to burn through the heavy armor over the Firebird's cockpit. But it's working. With its arms damaged, unable to shake you off again, the concentrated laser fire bores a single hole through the writhing frame's outer armor, and after a little wiggling, you manage to get a handhold in the gap you've created, peeling away the hatch, so you can land the final, finishing blow inside the cockpit.
The Firebird drops, ground trembling as the tons of steel come down at your feet. Turning, you see the others finishing up the Thor, still firing at them even as its body falls apart, whole sections of heavy armor sloughed off and electrical systems beneath shorting and arcing as they go offline one after another.
Of course, after just a moment to breathe and recover, Tendou refocuses, and joins them, shooting at the Thor until it finally falls.
With that done, everyone rounds on the final Hex. What you see has Tendou's eyes widen slightly. Back near the entrance to the clearing, the unknown frame has Takashi nearly pressed to the cliff wall, dodging around desperately, unable to even counterattack, with one of his arms cut off at the shoulder.
The attacker wields a Hardlight in one hand and a Makara in the other. And when Mouse carefully levels her rifle and fires on it, a small device on its shoulder pivots, flashing with a burst of plasma that vaporizes the bullet before it even lands. That's a Firewall.
You rapidly outline the frame's armaments for Tendou, considering how to approach this one, even as you run in closer to join the battle. You note the disruptive effects of the ion weapon, and the way the Firewall uses those instantaneous flashes of superheated plasma to destroy incoming ballistics and disrupt phaser and plasma weapons.
And that sword. A plasma sword like that is lethal at close range.
Of course, the thing's in a messy melee with Takashi as well, both lightweight frames moving around at extreme speeds. That's why only Mouse is firing, it seems she's the only one with precise enough shooting that she doesn't have to worry as much about hitting your own ally by accident.
Teeth gritted, Tendou glances to the corner of the display where you have your own status shown. It isn't too descriptive, just showing colors for general body parts, with lots of red now. “Damage report,” he says, so you pop out the most important details.
Torso Armor: 59% (-23%)
Left Arm Armor: 44% (-43%)
Right Arm Armor: 39% (-51%)
Right Arm Internals: 62% (-23%)
Small Phaser Damaged, output down -30%
“Tch,” he clicks his tongue when he sees just how bad some of it is. Thankfully, your frame's underlying structure wasn't too badly damaged for the most part, despite the huge amount of firepower that was coming at you.
But none of that helps with what to do next...
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Vote:
[ ] Get in close
[ ] Stay at range
[ ] Regroup with allies
[ ] Split off from the others
[ ] Write-in