[LOG] Kidnapping! Explosions! Vampires!
WHO: Melissa Mao, Kurz Weber, Sousuke Sagara, Mint Blancmanche, Akiko Obata. Guest-starring Kaname Chidori (NPCed FABULOUSLY by Rukia Kuchiki) and A Jillion Mafia Goons (NPCed by Old Man Li).
WHERE: A small town in Sicily, on the Earth of Full Metal Panic!
WHEN: Late at night! On a schoolday, yet!
WHAT: The Tuatha de Danaan's Special Response Team, Uruz squad, has located the traitor whose treachery led to the deaths of many comrades, including their beloved squad leader, Gail McAllen. After successfully detaining this man, Vincent Bluno, they engage in a madcap chase down the streets of the town, pursued by an army of Mafia and, oh yeah, a vampire.
WATCH FOR: Kaname calling Sousuke while he's busy driving and trying not to get killed by a VAMPIRE, the backseat armory, and Akiko's high-velocity tryst with a dumpster.
(Minor edits were made to my own poses and some to others' poses, mostly for the sake of consistency with the rest of the scene.)
Whispered Earth(#387Ten)
An Earth much like many others, this planet is possessed of an uncanny level of technology for an Earth circa early twenty-first century.
Contents:
Mint Blancmanche
Old Man Li
Kurz Weber
Melissa Mao
Jindai High School(#404Tn)
Somewhere in Sicily in the mansion of an extremely well connected Mafia Don is a darkened room. Inside this room are two people. One a somewhat unremarkable and even vaguely geeky blonde American male and an extremely (if scantily clad) gorgeous Aian woman. The male smiles charmingly at the woman as he turns off the light, "What is your name?"
The woman smiles and answers coyly, "Why do you want to know my name?"
The man's intentions are clear as he climbs up onto the bed, "So I can cry it out over and over again." He leans down to kiss the woman. As he does, she reaches up with one hand, grabs him by the hair and manages to flip him over and pin him down on the bed.
"You can call me Uruz-2." She grins evilly as she tears off her wig with one hand and retrieves a hand gun from god knows where. The gun is immediately shoved into the man's mouth as she leans very close, "And you are a dead man."
In the shadows of the curtain, a figure watches with interest. He doesn't need to step in just yet, he knows Nee-san knows her duty just as well as he does. He also wonder what she must be like in bed with a willing participant... but we'll keep that thought for later. Business first.
It's a really good thing Uruz-2 can't read minds or the figure behind the curtain would be in deep trouble. >.> As such, Uruz-2 is taking entirely too much pleasure in making the man beneath her squirm. He's trying to mumble around her gun and it's coming out as an extremely garbled "Oh god. Please, don't shoot. Don't shoot." But so such luck.
The woman shoves the gun even further into his mouth, "Shut up Bluno. You killed a close comrade and I'd kill you right here right now if it wasn't for orders." She reaches behind her and pulls out a giant needle. Don't ask where she got it, really. You might not want to know.
Bluno's eyes open wider as his mumbling gets louder and takes on a panicked pitch as he thrashes under Uruz-2. Unfortunately, this doesn't even phase the woman as she plunges the large needle into his neck and injects the semi-clear liquid inside it. This causes Bluno to pass out and the woman to stand up straight as soon as he's clearly unconscious. "You can come out now."
The way she said that, he thought perhaps she can read minds. Kurz, dressed to the nines in a silk tux, casually steps out into the moonlight, one hand inside a trouser pocket. The normally energetic soldier's voice is uncharacteristically low-key, "What a greeting. Here I was, trying to be the heroic knight that watches over you." The small smile fades as he views over the target's unconscious body. "I know how you must feel, I owe him one too. He'll get his, once we wrap things up here."
Mao snorts in an incredibly unfeminine manner, "A knight. Right. Let's just get him out of here. You took care of the guards right?" She's already moving to the balcony, leaving the body to the more sturdily built Kurz. She inspects the rope that's been tied to the balcony and tugs on it to insure it's on tight. "I'll go down first to make sure the coast is clear." In reality, she just wants to make sure she hits the ground first and prevent Kurz the opportunity to look up her skirt.
She puts her gun in her mouth they way a commando would with his knife as she begins to climb down. It's tricky business when one is wearing heels, but she manages to make it down safely. Let's just hope everything else goes smoothly.
Aww, Nee-san! Why do you have to be so mean! Kurz nods once, lugging one of the man's arms over a shoulder while holding him up with an arm around the waist. Worse comes to worse, they can claim he's passed-out drunk.
"We have a clear path straight through to the rendezvous point," he answers, tugging on the rope first before slowly sliding himself and the cargo down. Of course she would go first, she's better with pistols than he is, and it would be un-gentlemanly of him to have her lug Mr. Traitor all the way to the helicopter! She wouldn't trust him that little not to take a free peek while on duty!
Mao nods, "Alright." She begins running ahead, pausing at intervals through the garden maze to point her gun and make sure the coast is clear. "Hurry it up will you? We don't have all night." She scrawls slightly as she waits for Kurz to catch up. She rounds a bend towards an open portion of the garden. It's a bit risky, but it's the quickest way to the rendezvous point. She dashes forward with her pistol... only to find two young lovers in the middle of a romantic 'interlude'. Completely- not expecting this sudden encounter, she jumps back in surprise and let's out a yelp.
The couple looks up at her and spotting her gun begin to scream. Their scream causes the sentry to raise the alarm and suddenly the entire place is lit up with search lights and armed men are swarming the place.
Mao ducks behind a hedge and begins yelling at Kurz, "Damn it Kurz! I thought you got rid of everybody!" She grrrs angrily and points her gun at the unconscious Bluno, "If we're gonna die, he might as well go first!"
Kurz says nothing as he chugs along behind, though he's not smiling either. This is serious business, no need to mess up by going too fast and tripping over himself or the cargo. He's also surprised at how fast she can run in those heels. The view from the rear is almost as good as an underside shot!
Whoopsie. Kurz ducks a searchlight behind the hedge and tosses the sergeant major a sad shake of his head. "I did get rid of everybody, Nee-san! It's not my fault love can strike anytime!" The thought of dying here gets another shake of his blonde locks, "We're not dying here either. We need a Plan B."
A radio message filters into the Mithril earbuds Mao and Kurz wear. "Do not worry, Uruz 2, Uruz 6. It's not a problem."
And then the wall in front of them, opposite the hedge they are hiding behind, explodes inward. "Run through the wall," comes the voice. It's a familiar one.
It's Sousuke Sagara.
"SOUSUKE?! What are you doing here?! Shouldn't you be back in Japan?!" But Mao isn't going to argue too much when it comes to pulling her butt out of the fryer. She growls and snaps off a couple shots at some of the incoming mafia, "Move Uruz-6! I'll cover you!"
She only waits around long enough for Kurz to get a head start on her before running after him, her poor dress getting shot to pieces.
Kurz just grins, the Kool-Aid Sousuke came through in a pinch. Heck, he can even hear the battle cry: 'Oh. Yeah.' "On it," The tuxedoed avenger shouts, racing for the hole in the wall with Bluno trailing alongside him like a rag doll.
Sousuke Sagara is awaiting the duo at the roadside at the bottom of the small hill they find themselves atop. He is standing outside the car door of an idling Fiat; it does not look like a particularly sturdy car, and with four full-grown adults it will be more than slightly cramped, but it's what he got. He's in his Mithril olive uniform, although as usual for combat operations, all patches are absent.
"Correct. I was called away from exams because the mission route has changed. I'm the messenger and your backup." Even as he speaks, he climbs into the car.
Mao helps Kurz toss Bluno rather unceremoniously into the Fiat before plopping down into the front seat. She peers behind her with some urgency, "Wait, what? They changed the route? Why?" She slams her fist into the part of the dash in front of her, "Damn you Kalinin!"
Bluno gets unceremoniously dumped in a corner of the back seat as Kurz slams the door behind him. "We'll argue with him later, Nee-san," he says, leaning over to put himself between the two front seats. "Let's get out of here!"
Akiko Obata has arrived.
Sousuke slams his foot on the accelerator even as he explains, "Affirmative. The heli--" *TWANG* goes a bullet off the hood. "Ahem." The car rockets down the street. "The helicopter will pick us up directly. So, I'll take you straight to the rendezvous point." His eyes drift over to Mao and her poor, battered dress. "...by the way, that's a very odd swimsuit."
Sousuke Sagara | NEWS BULLETIN: (plane coordinates for Whispered Earth in the Scifi Zone, Sicily) A car chase has broken out in the streets of a town on the island of Sicily! Reports indicate a small car is being chased by up to thirteen black Sedans, and shots are being fired back and forth! No civilians are wounded as yet, but authorities are moving to contain the conflict!
Mint Blancmanche switches armor modes to Trick Master.
Y'know what every great escape requires? Yeah. That's right.
/MOOKS/.
And where do you find the FINEST Mooks in the West? That's right.
/SICILY/.
Yep, living up to the finest traditions of the fine traditions of the Italian Families, the weee bit of ruckus that the Uzru Team is raising with their extremely stealthy extraction goes un-notice by some, but not by all! After all, if you run, they will chase! Which is why, as that tiny lil' ol' Fiat goes zooming off, weighed down by four people, there's the sound of several engines catching simaltaneously, a small group of black sedans peeling out of the gate of the wall that Sousuke so unceremoniously broke. Lookie! It's Da Mob, and they're gunning after the Mithral sorts, a few riflemen already leaning out of the sunroofs of the Black Sedans, the tried, true, reliable, and easily aquired AK-47 (Bless Soviet overproduction and lack of money and morals!) the weapon of choice for these sorts, as they open fire on the fleeing Bikini Model, Secret Agent, and Schoolboy and their little car, too!
Mao's eyebrow twitches and a vein in her forehead pulses erratically, "It's not a swimsuit! It's an evening gown! EVENING. GOWN! This is what adults wear at functions like that!" She'd smack Sousuke, but he's driving and it wouldn't be a good thing to give your getaway driver a concussion.
Fortunately for everyone involved, Mao is forced to duck as the mafia bullets come crashing through the windows, shattering glass and grazing skin. Haha! New targets! Poor poor mooks. They don't know what they just got themselves involved with. "Drive faster Sousuke!" she commands the younger man as she stands up, turning around sticking herself out of the sun roof of the little Fiat. She aims carefully and begins shooting at the windshield of the first big black SUV. The first bullet hits the windshield, but only cracks it slightly.
"......" The next thing to come out of her mouth is a very loud and very long string of obscenities that gets lost in the wind and the ensuing gunshots as Mao unloads the rest of her clip. This is mostly likely a good thing as it involves creative new uses of bulletproof glass that may or may not be impossible.
Akiko Obata flies out of the nearest gate, currently resembling a rather large fanged bat. She flies up into the sky, and begins looking around for these vehicles she's supposed to be helping.
Kurz heroically draws... nothing. "What I would give for a rifle," he groans, ducking the bullets that shatter the rear window on the poor Fiat. Hopefully, the previous owner was in good hands with Allstate, or whoever does the insurance out here in Sicily. The blonde peeks out through the rear window, and raises his voice in alarm, "They're gaining on us! I know all the old Italian Army jokes, but I didn't think they made their cars with only one forward gear too!"
Well, the obvious answer as to which Sedans need helpingness are those engaged in a frantic car chase. Well, okay, to be fair, this IS Sicily. There's probaly /SEVERAL/ Car Chases. However, most of them aren't chasing a Fiat. I mean...Why the hell would anyone choose a /FIAT/?! Only an idjit would do that!
Anyways! The thing about bulletproof glass is, well, it's not /exactly/ bulletproof. I mean, a bullet hits it, and it cracks a bit, and it's a bit unnerving! The Mook drives steadily, unphased by the slight crack from the first bullet. When the rest of the clip hits, though, that's a bit more worrying, as the glass spiderwebs a bit, forcing the driver to swerve. Still, he's a good mook! While he swerves, he totally avoids doing a Blues Brothers Chase Scene Impersonation, meaning that ONE car doesn't manage to crash all 13 of them...yet...Instead, that driver acclerates, makin' up for lost time, proving the benefits of importing proper foriegn cars that have multiple gears and a better engine than the dorky little Fiat. The rifleman on the sunroof, however, is being all ">:(" at the handgunnin' Mao, and starts trying to tag her with a burst. Or, just as likely, tag the straps holding her top on with a bullet.
Mooks are people too, y'know.
"That's not the Italian Army you idiot! MAFIA! MA-FI-A!" Mao makes an erp sound as she is without bullets and the Italians seem to be too many. She quickly ducks back into the Fiat before the guns can do -too- much more damage to Mao's dress. The fine silk thing has -obviously- seen better days but it manages to stay on. She reloads her hand gun and points it straight at Bluno, who has miraculously managed to stay knocked out this entire time. "Too heavy huh? Let's kill him and toss him out the car." The sadistically evil grin she has on her face does not bode well for the traitor. Not at all.
And then, much to poor Sousuke's chagrin....his cellphone rings.
Kurz opens his mouth with an idea, then closes it when he remembers Ferarri and Lambroghini don't include backseats on their sportssters. He should write to them about that sometime, it would be very very handy for getaways like this. As well as the other things you use backseats for. Fu fu fu fu. "Yeah," he assents, with a long look at the unconscious cargo. "I'm starting to think that this is pointless."
"You want to make the car lighter?" Sousuke says as he keeps his head down. He happens to be attached to his skull and likes it all being in one place, not, say, splattered all over the front windshield. "That man won't be enough. There's 40 kilograms of weaponry behind the backseat; we should dump that, as well."
Pause. . o O (My phone is ringing. I should answer it. But I'm being shot at. But what if it's Kalinin? Kalinin would use something more secure. but but but ARG OK)
Sousuke reaches down with one hand to his cellphone, flips it open without looking at the caller ID slip, and says, "Hello?"
Yes! Well! While debates of whether to lighten the load go on, the MOOKS CONTINUE TO CHASE! With the gunfire and the noise and the definite proof that it's ALL SOUSUKE'S FAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULT!
Somewhere, halfway across the world...
A certain lovely, blue-haired teenager looks a little uncertain as she holds a cute, pink cellphone to her ear, blinking a little bit at the substantial level of interference - plus really weird noises - in the background. o O (What the....what's going on?). "Sousuke?" she ventures. "Where ARE you?! We had an important Classic Literature exam today, Kanzaki-sensei threatened to fail you if you don't show up this week to retake it!"
Akiko Obata spots the vehicles from high above; and begins diving towards them. Still a bat. She flies over the chase; keeping a few dozen feet above the cars.
If anyone currently participating in the car chase scene stopped to look at the sky... well, they'd probably crash and die a horrible burning death due to taking their eyes off the road and/or the bullets flying everywhere. Hmmm.
Alright, let's try that again. If anyone had particularly sharp eyes and just happened to look in a direction something rather like 'up', they might see a constant flare leaving behind a glowing engine trail, waaaaaay up there. And it's following the cars. That's no aircraft or jet; it's a genuine UFO!
Or at least, it's an Emblem Frame, which for all intents and purposes, is the same thing in this interplanar context. True to her words over her faction's channel, Mint Blancmanche IS indeed keeping an eye on the car chase down below. She can't make out details, like, say, the identity of the drivers in the Fiat or the vague shape of a bat, and she can barely tell that there's a firefight going on at this height, but... hey, that's what her Frame's sensors are for. So for now, Mint observes.
Wait... 40 kilos? Worth of weapons? Sousuke's completely nonchalant response to them losing weight makes Mao completely speechless for a moment, "..." She stares at Kurz for a second and dives around her seat, pushing Bluno out of the way. His head makes a loud thud against the side of the cramped Fiat's door as she scrambles to see what kind of weapons Sousuke is hiding. The weapon's cache causes her brow to twitch, "SOUSUKE YOU IDIOT! Why didn't you tell us this before?!" Mao's glare is most likely similar to the same kind Kaname is giving him over the phone right now.
She's too busy to notice what's going on in the night sky, but once she has her weapons, you can be sure nothing is safe. Not the SUVs, the vampire or the UFO.
...Poor, poor, poor Mooks. They didn't deserve this! They didn't! They just wanted to be happy and free and made men! And now a psychotic woman who's nearly naked and some male model are shooting at them from the back of a FIAT! WRRRRRRRRRRRRY?
...Oh, who are we kidding, no one cares about the mooks! The Bat is ignored by them, being, well, just a bat, and, besides, the Mooks are busy with the driving and the shooting and yelling threats at the Mithral team in Italian, y'see.
Kurz's shout is synchronized with Mao's as he stares, jaw agape, at his driver. "SOUSUKE YOU IDIOT! Why didn't you tell us this before?!" He spins around, opens the other half of the seat, and sparkles overtake his eyes as he pulls out a large high-calibre sniper rifle. "The Arctic Warfare Magnum! Ha ha!"
...KANAME!? "Chidori? Oh!" *PWANG* goes a bullet off the door. He looks in the rearview mirror at the pursuing Sedans, before it's suddenly shot off. Goody! "Fail? I hadn't thought I'd missed that many exams..." Mao and Kurz yell at him at this point, causing him to call over his shoulder, "I didn't tell you before?" ...oops. Oh well! He holds his hand back, waiting patiently for someone to hand him a weapon.
Yes, he's going to drive, with a cellphone in one hand and a high-caliber firearm in the other. The scary part is he probably knows how.
One could almost see her stamping her foot down. If she were there next to him, she'd either be really scared, or really determined, or even smack him upside the head. "SOUSUKE YOU NEVER TELL ME WHERE YOU'RE GOING ANYWAYS!" Kaname yells, completely losing her temper. But this is cooled, for just a moment, when she hears the sharp crack of a bullet near him. It's obvious that this particular aspect of him is just one of the many ways as to how he drives her crazy, however, and her tone shifts from angry to worried. ".....it sounds like a war zone out there! Just WHAT are yo--augh, nevermind, I don't think I WANT to know!"
And then, something lands on the roof. Specifically, a rather large fanged bat dives in front of the car; pulling up at the last moment, and doesn't reappear. The roof, however - does receive a rather large 'thunk' as Akiko hits it; and proceeds to transform back into her normal self; appropriatly holding onto the top of the car.
Mao cackles happily as she gets passed a very mean looking shotgun. She stands back up again through the sunroof, this time she leans back so that she's actually half sitting, half braced against the outside of the car.
Right at that time, Bluno decides to wake up. He stares upwards and his eyes end up looking straight at something he should not be seeing, "Oooooooooooooooooooooooooohc I see.." Mao looks down and slams her heeled foot into Bluno's face, knocking him out again. "Don't -anyone- turn around. I catch you looking and you're dead, right after we deal with these Mafia guys." She's serious and she's pissed.
But that distraction is more than enough for Akiko to safely land of the roof. When Mao looks up, she finds herself face to face with a somewhat unhealthy looking young woman (unhealthy being the skin color). "AH! Where the hell did you come from?! Get off my car!" She levels her shotgun at the girl. This is war and her life is on the line, she's not scared to open fire and she does. BANG goes the shotgun.
Up in the Trick Master, Mint... is having a moment of uncharacteristic relaxation. Despite the insanity taking place down below, the telepath has candy in her mouth, the white stick poking out making it very obvious that yes, she's eating a lolipop like a little kid. Hey, this WAS en route for the blue-haired Angel; she'd been on her way back from buying sweets originating from a 1920's era plane-
Back to the subject at hand, Mint frowns slightly. Something about the situation down below is bothering her. Maybe it's the trace of the very faint thoughts she's picking up from the people down below, or maybe it's the twelve-cars-chasing-one that strikes her as odd. Thus, Trick Master starts descending slowly, eventually stopping at about eight stories up- far enough away that the Frame's shape is hard to make out, but close enough for the people down below to tell that no, this most defintely isn't a jet.
The problem with Sicily, y'know, is that it's, well, an island. That poor, poor, Poor Mook. After all. Bad vision. Tight Curve. Bad combination, as an SUV goes plowing through a guard rail, slamming into an antique store with a loud shattering crash. Oooooh, smokey! Still, there's several other SUV's left, and they're slotting into the gap left by Mao's first victim. The fact that there's a nice young creepy lady on the roof helping distract them doesn't hurt at all! ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Annnnnnnnnnnd then Mint comes zooming in. Mooks being Mooks, they do the logical thing. The ones who can't shoot at the Fiat take a potshot at Mint's crazy little frameything! Wheeeeeeee!
Kurz's face lights up, only to promptly fall. ", Nee-san, why must you be so cruel! With a defeated sigh, he hands Sousuke an MP5 submachinegun and then sets his rifle up through the backseat window, ignoring the thump on the roof and the sporadic bullets ricocheting off of the car's frame. Mao can deal with the Mafia Airborne, he'll take care of the guys on their trail.
"I'm...driving!" Sousuke replies. He omits the fact that he's also being shot at, because that's probably obvious, and he doesn't reallly want to worry her that much anyWHAT THE HELL A BAT. Sousuke swerves to avoid it, but that doesn't work so well as there's a loud THUMP on the roof. The possibility of vampires does not even cross his mind. "Something's on the roof!" he shouts back, and then adds, "I'm turning!" as he rapidly spins the wheel, skidding around a corner and down another cobblestone road. City limit's aren't that much further, once they're in the open they'll be in trouble unless they can take out most of these pursuers beforehand. Fortunately, he brought rocket launchers for just such an eventuality. (*BANG* goes the shotgun.) "Was the examination difficult?" Sousuke suddenly asks into his cellphone as another bullet pangs off the doorframe. Bringing his hands back to accept the submachinegun, he cocks it with his teeth, then says, "I'll need to study for the makeup."
Kurz's face lights up, only to promptly fall. "Ah, Nee-san, why must you be so cruel!" With a defeated sigh, he hands Sousuke an MP5 submachinegun and then sets his rifle up through the backseat window, ignoring the thump on the roof and the sporadic bullets ricocheting off of the car's frame. Mao can deal with the Mafia Airborne, he'll take care of the guys on their tail. The mook driving the lead car, if he's not surprised by Batwoman landing on the Fiat, will definitely be surprised when his windshield explodes in front of him. And maybe his head exploding as well, those .338 rounds can be nasty as many a Counter-Strike player can attest to.
Kaname sighs, planting her hand on her hip and turning around slightly. "It's Kanzaki-sensei, so of course it was difficult!" She was more irritated at the fact that Sousuke was OBVIOUSLY avoiding the issue (ie. being shot) and trying to distract her with talk about class. Well, THAT WASN'T GONNA FLY, BUDDY! "And of course you have to study! The only question is when you'll actually have the time to do so while you're trying your best not to get killed! Should you even be on the PHONE?" She sighs, and mutters. "I can always call back, you know. When you're less out of the line of fire."
What the hell was he doing out there anyways? Granted she knows he can't exactly tell her where he is. Aren't ops covert anyways? Or he COULD, he just doesn't want to let her know. But why? He usually told her everything! .....when she found out about something, so it's a little post-facto, but still! And he was military, he probably had to go through a lot of points....
Or maybe he had an overseas girlfriend?
Did he have girlfriends at every stop?
Her eyebrow starts spasming epileptically.
Akiko Obata is shot at. Right through the roof of the car. She goes flying off; her body careening past the windows; but she manages to dig a hand into the side rear of the car (just near where the trunk would be if it had one); holding on with one hand for a moment (yes; the hand is physically dug into the frame); the massive wound visable in her chest.
Thats another top ruined. Damn planar citizens and the ruining of the designer clothes.
She digs her other hand in for grip, and attempts to kick at the nearest tire. Hard.
Y'know what happens when you shoot a watermelon with a large gun?
Yeah. That's what the inside of the lead SUV looks like right now. Well, not that it matters, really. See, the driver's dead, and, well, that means you've got an SUV going out of control. The roofmen are chucked out of the sunrooms. They're lucky! THey might, feasibly, survive, and come back later as ELITE MOOKS. As for the other mobsters inside...well...the SUV starts rolling. And keeps rolling. And slams off an embankment, landing in a drainage ditch, crumpling, annnnd that's when there's the sound of a few shots. Someone convlusively squeezed the trigger, the shot's good, annnnn...
KA-PWOOMPF!
The bullet slams into the gastank. WHeeee explodies!
ELEVEN FOES REMAIN.
Mao looks triumphant as she blasts the girl off the roof of the car. "Hah! Take that you *****. Teach you to hitch a ride on -my-car." She puts the shotgun down and leans it carefully against the dash as well as she can before reaching for one of the disposable rocket launchers. "Let's see you dodge this!" She pulls the trigger right as Akiko kicks the tire. How the missile flies will be completely determined by how Sousuke reacts.
A message is being passed to some of the black SUVs as a rumble is heard in the distance at the outskirts of town. It is not a happy sounding rumble at all. It's something on the loud and very mechanical side.
Now that Mint's much closer to the ground, she's more or less able to eyeball the cars down below; the information being filtered through her sensors- estimated weight, potential manufacturers, even the horsepower inherent in their engines- are cross-checked against a large database with adjustments made for interplanar variations. The chasee turns up as a Fiat, a car of Italian make- tiny, cheap, potentially old, and reknowned for its instability. The chasers? Roughly, mob cars.
And then there's the woman clinging to the top of the Fiat- a woman who, according to the telepath's sensors, should be stiffer than a two-by-four. Before Mint can make heads or tails of that, the Italians down below fire at the large Frame. The 'pingpingpingpingpingpingping' sound alerts Mint more than whatever (superficial) damage those bullets might be causing, she calmly slows down the Trick Master until it's riiiight behind the Italian cars.
Her ears twitch. She'd just gotten the Frame repaired, too. With a slight sigh, Mint clicks on her rarely-used speaker system. "I would not suggest firing upon a relic of Lost Technology able to blow holes in battle cruisers, especially when said relic belongs to a member of the Interplanar Peacekeeping Agency," she says sweetly. The first explosion'd car is ignored. Traces of something very large and mechanical, however, do not- Mint brings the Trick Master back up a bit, the telepath sweeping the area with her eyes AND her sensors for whatever that is. "What the...?"
One down. Kurz's smile sparkles as he cocks back the bolt and loads in the next shot. As the Fiat takes the curve hard, he braces himself against one side of the car's wall and holds his shot, which is convenient as Bluno elects to wake up again. "Wha-" WHACK. AWP- er- AWMs also make a handy bludgeoning tool as well.
Hold on a sec, there's someone hanging on to the side of the car. Kurz sticks his head out and notices someone with a sucking chest wound doing something people with sucking chest wounds normally don't do. She must be made of the same stuff the Lieutenant Commander and Sousuke are made of. He ducks his head back in, and a moment later, a grenade comes tumbling out of the window with a nonchalant, "Here, hold this." If he's lucky, she falls for it. If not, the first SUV to survive the RPG will run it over.
Sousuke does not SEE Akiko so much as SENSE her; having been a soldier as long as he has, he's become somewhat adept at sensing murderous intent in the air. Also, she just hit the damn car, and that's slowing them down even more. "It's not a problem!" Sousuke announces to Kaname. "Just...hold on a second." He drops the phone into his lap and then sliiiides over to the side - where if the grenade doesn't get Akiko, the dumpster Sousuke just barely avoided probably will rather nicely smash her head in and knock her off the car.
He grabs the phone again. "What did you want to talk about? It's very noisy here!"
Akiko Obata looks at the grenade as its coming towards her. She also sees the dumpster. She can't really deal with both; so makes a judgement call. She digs one of her hands out of the car, grabs the grenade...and then instead of oh say...doing something silly like /holding on to it/ - she simply throws it back into the window right beside her. The one that people have been shooting out of. Hopefully; it'll go off soon. Depends on how long that '7 seconds' is.
But then, she's smashed into a dumpster; crumpling her body against it and knocking her off of the car and into the street/road/whatever.
Oh /boy/ is that going to suck in a second.
Kaname's mouth opens. "I thought I TOLD you! I called because...."
She missed him.
She was worried.
She wanted to KICK his ass for not telling her where he went or when he was coming back.
But mostly because she was worried.
Like hell if she's saying anything like that while he's getting shot at though. Or, well, EVER. At least not until the novel after the next one after this one.
"--because Kanzaki-sensei will FAIL you if I don't tell you about the retake!" she sputters. "I'm just gonna go leave my notes at your apartment. You need it, right?" Huff. Men. Always shooting at things. -_-
....Poor Poor Mooks. They keep getting blown up and shot at and all that! Ah well! That's what a life of drugs and debauchery get you! Being blown up by several Japanese (Or Whatever) Teenagers With Large Guns And Ludicrous amounts of military training. Really. Smarties don't do drugs, cause they don't want to get EXPLODED.
'Luckily', those Mooks aren't smart! That's why...well...GRENADE'D! The RPGs bad enough, but the grenade goes off with enough force to flip an SUV backwards, squishing the poor roofgunner into a smear and smashing it backwards into a following SUV. Not enough to crush it, but, well, the follow up SUV is out a gunner as well, seeing as how he goes flying from the impact.
Remember, kids: Always Wear A Seatbelt.
Mint's sensors pick up three giant mechas on the edge of town, lying in wait. In the database, the would be registered as RK-92 Savages. While the MITHRIL folks would normally make mincemeat out of these Arm Slaves, their backing entirely too little firepower to go up against Arm Slaves.
Mao laughs happily, as if she's having bucket loads of fun while she tosses the now useless rocket launcher to the side. She reaches back down for her shotgun. With the girl now -off- their car, she begins firing at the SUVs again, determined to use up all of her slugs.
Where did that grenade come from? You see, Kurz was sitting right next to the window, and in one fluid motion, catches the grenade and tosses it back out the window behind him. He saw that coming as well. Bluno woozily blinks and starts to mumble, which gets him another rifle butt to the head before Kurz joins Melissa in blazing away mightily behind him. No insane laughter though, he saves that for those successful missions to the other side of the onsen.
Oh! Right. She had mentioned that, hadn't she OH HEY BULLETS AND A VAMPIRE. Except that's totally not a vampire. It must be some kind of...person. Thankfully, Sousuke just killed her and then probably the SUVs killed her a bunch more times. Sousuke no longer even registers her as a threat; if she's alive, she's surely got more broken bones than she has whole ones.
"Failing would be a problem," Sousuke concedes. "Thank you for your assistance Chidori. -- not good TURNING!!"
There's a truck in the way. Sousuke spins the wheel to the left rapidly, dropping gun and phone as he does so, somehow managing to slip the tiny vehicle between truck and buildings. The same can probably not be said for several of the SUVs. He grabs the phone again as soon as he can. "I'll be back to take the make-up soon!" he says. "Failing to keep pace with you would be a problem."
Akiko Obata is run over by a large number of SUV's.
He was going to keep her on the phone until he injures himself. Kaname SIGHS exasperatedly, hearing the roar of battle somewhere in the background as Sousuke...turns, or whatever. And dodges whatever it is heading his way. Wait, was he dodging? "It would be a problem," she mutters. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your mission out of sight and out of mind. Just.....AUGH, just be careful." It's not like she didn't want to talk to him, he's been gone for DAYS. But she knew it was necessary, and so she hangs up the phone, still looking somewhat irritated.
Mao tosses the now completely empty shotgun to the side and picks up another rocket launcher. She blinks and ducks her head when Mint goes buzzing over her head and fires off the warning shots, "What the f-?!" She switches to Mandarin and begins cursing again, mostly because it makes her feel better.
She stands back up again, this time with a rocket launcher on her shoulder. She'll worry about Mint later, first she's got to get rid of the other SUVs, "INCOMING!" She yells with gusto.
The Arm Slaves that get fired upon react instantly by making their appearance and begin to open fire on the Frame Emblem with big Mecha sized machine guns.
The last turn sends the backseat passengers tumbling about in a very chaotic (and platonic) fashion, with the AWM beaning Mr. Traitor once more on its own volition. Kurz finds himself on the floor, looking up at Sousuke with fire in his eyes. "Dumbass! Next time, warn me before- OOH!" Looks like that's not the only thing worth looking up at from the floor! Hellllllo commando style Mao!
Click. She hung up on him. ...he's not sure whether to be happy that his attention is now free, or upset that she hung up on him! Arg! Either way, he drops the phone for good this time, and leans out the window, aiming his SMG backward as cover-fire. "We're almost out of the town!" he warns.
Ahhhhhhhh, lovely! ROCKET FIRE! Poor sadfaced Mooks. Look at their sad and/or terrified faces, as one of the lead cars is rocketed out of existence. Poor Mook SUV. It's EXPLODEDATED. Mmmm, shrapnel. By now...well...the SUVs are having to back off a bit. Too much ordinance, and, well, there's all these WRECKS in the way making it unsafe to drive. How horrifying! THe result, anyhoo, is that the SUVs are pretty much picked off by now, as a real danger. I mean...THE COMMANDO WOMAN HAS A FREAKING ROCKET LAUNCHER! IN A FIAT! Mooks are pretty stupid, and have no real danger sense, but they do realize there are few things more dangerous than an angry asian woman in a bikini with a very large gun! Those who haven't realized that are moaning, groaning, shredded, smeared, or crisped along the Uzru Team's flight out of town, y'see.
Human-scaled bullets? Yeah, sure, not much of a problem there. Mecha-scaled bullets? Yeah, that might hurt a bit. This is why Mint tries to spin the Trick Master out of the way; even though hers isn't the fastest Emblem Frame out there, the telepath still finds herself surprised as a few shells /spang/ off her craft's body as she passes the Slaves by, rocking her around a bit. "Those first-generation robots hit me?!" As the blue-haired girl brings her Frame back around for another pass, Mint grimaces slightly. "I suppose I was a little /too/ much like Forte for a moment there..."
Once again zipping towards the Slaves (and the car chase), the Trick Master releases a pair of missiles at its opponents, following them up with another needling barrage of pinpoint beams. Okay, so Forte's policy of overwhelming firepower might have something to it...
"... ..." Mao becomes slightly alarmed when Kurz doesn't finish his sentence. She looks down, only to notice where Kurz's eyes are. ".... YOU IDIOT!" She kicks the man in the head, really hard. I mean -really- hard. "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TURN AROUND! ARG!!" She kicks him a second time for good measure, "Dumbass!" This is followed by a string of profanities in Cantonese. No one else in the car might be able to understand, but it's evident that none of it is even remotely close to pleasant.
The sounds of missiles and Arm Slaves firing machine guns is enough to save Kurz from a very painful death though as Mao looks up, "Savages?! S***" She ducks down into her seat, "Sousuke! Try to avoid them!"
One Savage goes down to the missiles while a second one becomes heavily damaged. The third manages to dodge a bit and fire at the same time.
CRACK. Luckily, Kurz is made of hard stuff, otherwise he'd be just as out as Mr. Traitor. "I- I- Uh- free shot?", is all he can offer as a defense in between beatings. Fortunately for him, rescue comes in the form of enemy Arm Slaves! Wait. "There might be another rocket launcher in here," he yells as he crawls into the weapon space. But will he find one in time?
Sousuke says, with his usual unruffled tones, "How? I can't go offroad, this car's barely surviving as it is." He does keep swerving to avoid enemy fire, but that's about all he CAN do. "It seems we've got some kind of fire support..." He squints at Trick Master. "Unusual craft. Think it's with us?"
He adds, without even looking, "Kurz, there should be one final panzerfaust under Sgt. Major Mao's seat. You've used all the others." Of course he keeps a mental ammo count for the entire team. What, you're surprised?
This time, Mint's ready- barrage unleashed, the Trick Master peels off and corkscrews straight up into the air as the remaining Arm Slave opens fire, the bullets scoring only a few glancing shots on the Lost Technology. At the peak of her flight, Mint turns right back around and nosedives back down at the remaining (one and a half) Savage(s), the telepath narrowing her eyes in the H.A.L.O-powered cockpit. Behind her, the engines begin trailing what look like feathers, which quickly dissipate into the air.
"Flyer Dance!" The orbiting beam satellites flare a pale blue for a moment before suddenly zipping down towards the Arm Slaves, erratic flight paths leveling out as they arc through the air and open fire in long, prolonged bursts. Beams lance out with incredible accuracy and /carve/ up, down, and to the side, attempting to carve the robots' appendages off. Mint's not trying to blow up and kill; she just wants to stop them.
A glance is given towards the Fiat, white bunny-like ears twitching slightly. Mint is at least passingly familiar with two of those minds' mental signatures. She's also got a few questions for them later.
The 1.5 remaining Savages are easily dismembered by Mint's lasers. In a last ditch effort though, the one still semi-functioning Savage launches itself at the Flame Emblem
Mao just whistles, impressed by the display of firepower. This doesn't mean she's forgiven Kurz though. Oh no. Oh most definitely not. She glares at Kurz, "We'll settle this later."
Lock 'n load. Kurz grumps as he pops up next to Mao and pulls the trigger on the Panzerfaust. "Fine, I'll buy the drinks." Boom!
*CLANG!* "What the- get off!!" Mint squeals as the mostly-gone Savage completely takes her by surprise. The Trick Master isn't made for close-range combat at ALL, so all it can really do is wobble in mid-air to try and shake the off the clinger. The beam satellites just sort of... hang there, Mint being understandably unwilling to fire on herself.
For a moment, it seems as if Kurz's rocket is going to hit Mint- and then by some stroke of luck, the Frame twists around, the AS-clinging side to the Fiat.
Kurz's missile flies true as it hits the AS with a spectacular explosion. The pilot managed to escape at the very last second when his radar detected something that was not supposed to be headed his way. The ASes are now no more and the coast is completely clear.
That's right! Which means it's time for some answers for Mint! Right?
...RIGHT?
"Hang on," Sousuke suddenly announces, and veers sharply to the right. As he does so, he pulls out his good old remote control switch from...from somewhere, and flips one of them. There's a rather sizeable explosion in front of them, and then suddenly a ramp, hidden in the brush Sousuke just blew up, is revealed to be in front of them. The car takes off into the air, soaring surprisingly far for its limited horsepower, and then -- then it vanishes off all perception.
In the hangar of the ECS-equipped VTOL they have just landed inside, Sousuke looks to his two partners, and at the rather remarkably long skidmark he has created in the landing bay. Not a bad landing, he decides.
The rocket more or less demolishes the AS clinging onto the Trick Master in a very pretty explosion... that is, it's pretty if you're not engulfed in it like Mint is. Her Frame suffers superficial damage, but the... turbulence almost knocks the telepath's craft to the ground, and the next few seconds are filled with trying to recalibrate her balance AND the Trick Master.
When Mint recovers- BOOM. And then.. nothing. ... ooh yes, there're going to be /many/ more questions for the MITHRIL people once she catches up to them.
POST:
============================== News Broadcasts ===============================
Message: 10/10 Posted Author
News From Sicily Fri Apr 07 The Associated Press
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newscast from Sicily in the as-yet un-nicknamed world of the ARM Slaves (OOCly, Full Metal Panic! Plane)
"Last night, a massive gun battle brokeout in the streets of Tatanika, on the island of Sicily! The battle began when a car, fleeing the site of a party at the Barbara family estate, was pursued by what some witnesses report as up to thirteen black sedans and SUVs, with drivers and passengers armed with machineguns. The passengers of the car were reportedly also heavily armed."
Blurry image of a speeding, shot-up Fiat, with a woman in a raggety evening dress firing what appears to be a ROCKET LAUNCHER at the pursuing SUV.
"The battle continued into the countryside surrounding the village, where three unknown A.S. units of Russian make were engaged in a fight with an unknown aircraft. The car's inhabitants also fired upon the ARM Slaves."
Equally blurry photo of RK-92 Savage-type ARM Slaves shooting bullets at Mint Blancmanche's Trick Master, followed by an image of someone else in the Fiat, with shoulder-length blonde hair in a tattered tuxedo vest and shirt firing another rocket at a nearly-destroyed Savage, which is clinging to the Trick Master.
"The vehicle disappeared into the brush outside the village, and no trace of it has been seen since. Authorities are investigating the matter and we will continue to report as the situation develops."
(Questions and investigations to Sousuke Sagara, Kurz Weber, or Melissa Mao!)
==============================================================================
WHERE: A small town in Sicily, on the Earth of Full Metal Panic!
WHEN: Late at night! On a schoolday, yet!
WHAT: The Tuatha de Danaan's Special Response Team, Uruz squad, has located the traitor whose treachery led to the deaths of many comrades, including their beloved squad leader, Gail McAllen. After successfully detaining this man, Vincent Bluno, they engage in a madcap chase down the streets of the town, pursued by an army of Mafia and, oh yeah, a vampire.
WATCH FOR: Kaname calling Sousuke while he's busy driving and trying not to get killed by a VAMPIRE, the backseat armory, and Akiko's high-velocity tryst with a dumpster.
(Minor edits were made to my own poses and some to others' poses, mostly for the sake of consistency with the rest of the scene.)
Whispered Earth(#387Ten)
An Earth much like many others, this planet is possessed of an uncanny level of technology for an Earth circa early twenty-first century.
Contents:
Mint Blancmanche
Old Man Li
Kurz Weber
Melissa Mao
Jindai High School(#404Tn)
Somewhere in Sicily in the mansion of an extremely well connected Mafia Don is a darkened room. Inside this room are two people. One a somewhat unremarkable and even vaguely geeky blonde American male and an extremely (if scantily clad) gorgeous Aian woman. The male smiles charmingly at the woman as he turns off the light, "What is your name?"
The woman smiles and answers coyly, "Why do you want to know my name?"
The man's intentions are clear as he climbs up onto the bed, "So I can cry it out over and over again." He leans down to kiss the woman. As he does, she reaches up with one hand, grabs him by the hair and manages to flip him over and pin him down on the bed.
"You can call me Uruz-2." She grins evilly as she tears off her wig with one hand and retrieves a hand gun from god knows where. The gun is immediately shoved into the man's mouth as she leans very close, "And you are a dead man."
In the shadows of the curtain, a figure watches with interest. He doesn't need to step in just yet, he knows Nee-san knows her duty just as well as he does. He also wonder what she must be like in bed with a willing participant... but we'll keep that thought for later. Business first.
It's a really good thing Uruz-2 can't read minds or the figure behind the curtain would be in deep trouble. >.> As such, Uruz-2 is taking entirely too much pleasure in making the man beneath her squirm. He's trying to mumble around her gun and it's coming out as an extremely garbled "Oh god. Please, don't shoot. Don't shoot." But so such luck.
The woman shoves the gun even further into his mouth, "Shut up Bluno. You killed a close comrade and I'd kill you right here right now if it wasn't for orders." She reaches behind her and pulls out a giant needle. Don't ask where she got it, really. You might not want to know.
Bluno's eyes open wider as his mumbling gets louder and takes on a panicked pitch as he thrashes under Uruz-2. Unfortunately, this doesn't even phase the woman as she plunges the large needle into his neck and injects the semi-clear liquid inside it. This causes Bluno to pass out and the woman to stand up straight as soon as he's clearly unconscious. "You can come out now."
The way she said that, he thought perhaps she can read minds. Kurz, dressed to the nines in a silk tux, casually steps out into the moonlight, one hand inside a trouser pocket. The normally energetic soldier's voice is uncharacteristically low-key, "What a greeting. Here I was, trying to be the heroic knight that watches over you." The small smile fades as he views over the target's unconscious body. "I know how you must feel, I owe him one too. He'll get his, once we wrap things up here."
Mao snorts in an incredibly unfeminine manner, "A knight. Right. Let's just get him out of here. You took care of the guards right?" She's already moving to the balcony, leaving the body to the more sturdily built Kurz. She inspects the rope that's been tied to the balcony and tugs on it to insure it's on tight. "I'll go down first to make sure the coast is clear." In reality, she just wants to make sure she hits the ground first and prevent Kurz the opportunity to look up her skirt.
She puts her gun in her mouth they way a commando would with his knife as she begins to climb down. It's tricky business when one is wearing heels, but she manages to make it down safely. Let's just hope everything else goes smoothly.
Aww, Nee-san! Why do you have to be so mean! Kurz nods once, lugging one of the man's arms over a shoulder while holding him up with an arm around the waist. Worse comes to worse, they can claim he's passed-out drunk.
"We have a clear path straight through to the rendezvous point," he answers, tugging on the rope first before slowly sliding himself and the cargo down. Of course she would go first, she's better with pistols than he is, and it would be un-gentlemanly of him to have her lug Mr. Traitor all the way to the helicopter! She wouldn't trust him that little not to take a free peek while on duty!
Mao nods, "Alright." She begins running ahead, pausing at intervals through the garden maze to point her gun and make sure the coast is clear. "Hurry it up will you? We don't have all night." She scrawls slightly as she waits for Kurz to catch up. She rounds a bend towards an open portion of the garden. It's a bit risky, but it's the quickest way to the rendezvous point. She dashes forward with her pistol... only to find two young lovers in the middle of a romantic 'interlude'. Completely- not expecting this sudden encounter, she jumps back in surprise and let's out a yelp.
The couple looks up at her and spotting her gun begin to scream. Their scream causes the sentry to raise the alarm and suddenly the entire place is lit up with search lights and armed men are swarming the place.
Mao ducks behind a hedge and begins yelling at Kurz, "Damn it Kurz! I thought you got rid of everybody!" She grrrs angrily and points her gun at the unconscious Bluno, "If we're gonna die, he might as well go first!"
Kurz says nothing as he chugs along behind, though he's not smiling either. This is serious business, no need to mess up by going too fast and tripping over himself or the cargo. He's also surprised at how fast she can run in those heels. The view from the rear is almost as good as an underside shot!
Whoopsie. Kurz ducks a searchlight behind the hedge and tosses the sergeant major a sad shake of his head. "I did get rid of everybody, Nee-san! It's not my fault love can strike anytime!" The thought of dying here gets another shake of his blonde locks, "We're not dying here either. We need a Plan B."
A radio message filters into the Mithril earbuds Mao and Kurz wear. "Do not worry, Uruz 2, Uruz 6. It's not a problem."
And then the wall in front of them, opposite the hedge they are hiding behind, explodes inward. "Run through the wall," comes the voice. It's a familiar one.
It's Sousuke Sagara.
"SOUSUKE?! What are you doing here?! Shouldn't you be back in Japan?!" But Mao isn't going to argue too much when it comes to pulling her butt out of the fryer. She growls and snaps off a couple shots at some of the incoming mafia, "Move Uruz-6! I'll cover you!"
She only waits around long enough for Kurz to get a head start on her before running after him, her poor dress getting shot to pieces.
Kurz just grins, the Kool-Aid Sousuke came through in a pinch. Heck, he can even hear the battle cry: 'Oh. Yeah.' "On it," The tuxedoed avenger shouts, racing for the hole in the wall with Bluno trailing alongside him like a rag doll.
Sousuke Sagara is awaiting the duo at the roadside at the bottom of the small hill they find themselves atop. He is standing outside the car door of an idling Fiat; it does not look like a particularly sturdy car, and with four full-grown adults it will be more than slightly cramped, but it's what he got. He's in his Mithril olive uniform, although as usual for combat operations, all patches are absent.
"Correct. I was called away from exams because the mission route has changed. I'm the messenger and your backup." Even as he speaks, he climbs into the car.
Mao helps Kurz toss Bluno rather unceremoniously into the Fiat before plopping down into the front seat. She peers behind her with some urgency, "Wait, what? They changed the route? Why?" She slams her fist into the part of the dash in front of her, "Damn you Kalinin!"
Bluno gets unceremoniously dumped in a corner of the back seat as Kurz slams the door behind him. "We'll argue with him later, Nee-san," he says, leaning over to put himself between the two front seats. "Let's get out of here!"
Akiko Obata has arrived.
Sousuke slams his foot on the accelerator even as he explains, "Affirmative. The heli--" *TWANG* goes a bullet off the hood. "Ahem." The car rockets down the street. "The helicopter will pick us up directly. So, I'll take you straight to the rendezvous point." His eyes drift over to Mao and her poor, battered dress. "...by the way, that's a very odd swimsuit."
Sousuke Sagara | NEWS BULLETIN: (plane coordinates for Whispered Earth in the Scifi Zone, Sicily) A car chase has broken out in the streets of a town on the island of Sicily! Reports indicate a small car is being chased by up to thirteen black Sedans, and shots are being fired back and forth! No civilians are wounded as yet, but authorities are moving to contain the conflict!
Mint Blancmanche switches armor modes to Trick Master.
Y'know what every great escape requires? Yeah. That's right.
/MOOKS/.
And where do you find the FINEST Mooks in the West? That's right.
/SICILY/.
Yep, living up to the finest traditions of the fine traditions of the Italian Families, the weee bit of ruckus that the Uzru Team is raising with their extremely stealthy extraction goes un-notice by some, but not by all! After all, if you run, they will chase! Which is why, as that tiny lil' ol' Fiat goes zooming off, weighed down by four people, there's the sound of several engines catching simaltaneously, a small group of black sedans peeling out of the gate of the wall that Sousuke so unceremoniously broke. Lookie! It's Da Mob, and they're gunning after the Mithral sorts, a few riflemen already leaning out of the sunroofs of the Black Sedans, the tried, true, reliable, and easily aquired AK-47 (Bless Soviet overproduction and lack of money and morals!) the weapon of choice for these sorts, as they open fire on the fleeing Bikini Model, Secret Agent, and Schoolboy and their little car, too!
Mao's eyebrow twitches and a vein in her forehead pulses erratically, "It's not a swimsuit! It's an evening gown! EVENING. GOWN! This is what adults wear at functions like that!" She'd smack Sousuke, but he's driving and it wouldn't be a good thing to give your getaway driver a concussion.
Fortunately for everyone involved, Mao is forced to duck as the mafia bullets come crashing through the windows, shattering glass and grazing skin. Haha! New targets! Poor poor mooks. They don't know what they just got themselves involved with. "Drive faster Sousuke!" she commands the younger man as she stands up, turning around sticking herself out of the sun roof of the little Fiat. She aims carefully and begins shooting at the windshield of the first big black SUV. The first bullet hits the windshield, but only cracks it slightly.
"......" The next thing to come out of her mouth is a very loud and very long string of obscenities that gets lost in the wind and the ensuing gunshots as Mao unloads the rest of her clip. This is mostly likely a good thing as it involves creative new uses of bulletproof glass that may or may not be impossible.
Akiko Obata flies out of the nearest gate, currently resembling a rather large fanged bat. She flies up into the sky, and begins looking around for these vehicles she's supposed to be helping.
Kurz heroically draws... nothing. "What I would give for a rifle," he groans, ducking the bullets that shatter the rear window on the poor Fiat. Hopefully, the previous owner was in good hands with Allstate, or whoever does the insurance out here in Sicily. The blonde peeks out through the rear window, and raises his voice in alarm, "They're gaining on us! I know all the old Italian Army jokes, but I didn't think they made their cars with only one forward gear too!"
Well, the obvious answer as to which Sedans need helpingness are those engaged in a frantic car chase. Well, okay, to be fair, this IS Sicily. There's probaly /SEVERAL/ Car Chases. However, most of them aren't chasing a Fiat. I mean...Why the hell would anyone choose a /FIAT/?! Only an idjit would do that!
Anyways! The thing about bulletproof glass is, well, it's not /exactly/ bulletproof. I mean, a bullet hits it, and it cracks a bit, and it's a bit unnerving! The Mook drives steadily, unphased by the slight crack from the first bullet. When the rest of the clip hits, though, that's a bit more worrying, as the glass spiderwebs a bit, forcing the driver to swerve. Still, he's a good mook! While he swerves, he totally avoids doing a Blues Brothers Chase Scene Impersonation, meaning that ONE car doesn't manage to crash all 13 of them...yet...Instead, that driver acclerates, makin' up for lost time, proving the benefits of importing proper foriegn cars that have multiple gears and a better engine than the dorky little Fiat. The rifleman on the sunroof, however, is being all ">:(" at the handgunnin' Mao, and starts trying to tag her with a burst. Or, just as likely, tag the straps holding her top on with a bullet.
Mooks are people too, y'know.
"That's not the Italian Army you idiot! MAFIA! MA-FI-A!" Mao makes an erp sound as she is without bullets and the Italians seem to be too many. She quickly ducks back into the Fiat before the guns can do -too- much more damage to Mao's dress. The fine silk thing has -obviously- seen better days but it manages to stay on. She reloads her hand gun and points it straight at Bluno, who has miraculously managed to stay knocked out this entire time. "Too heavy huh? Let's kill him and toss him out the car." The sadistically evil grin she has on her face does not bode well for the traitor. Not at all.
And then, much to poor Sousuke's chagrin....his cellphone rings.
Kurz opens his mouth with an idea, then closes it when he remembers Ferarri and Lambroghini don't include backseats on their sportssters. He should write to them about that sometime, it would be very very handy for getaways like this. As well as the other things you use backseats for. Fu fu fu fu. "Yeah," he assents, with a long look at the unconscious cargo. "I'm starting to think that this is pointless."
"You want to make the car lighter?" Sousuke says as he keeps his head down. He happens to be attached to his skull and likes it all being in one place, not, say, splattered all over the front windshield. "That man won't be enough. There's 40 kilograms of weaponry behind the backseat; we should dump that, as well."
Pause. . o O (My phone is ringing. I should answer it. But I'm being shot at. But what if it's Kalinin? Kalinin would use something more secure. but but but ARG OK)
Sousuke reaches down with one hand to his cellphone, flips it open without looking at the caller ID slip, and says, "Hello?"
Yes! Well! While debates of whether to lighten the load go on, the MOOKS CONTINUE TO CHASE! With the gunfire and the noise and the definite proof that it's ALL SOUSUKE'S FAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULT!
Somewhere, halfway across the world...
A certain lovely, blue-haired teenager looks a little uncertain as she holds a cute, pink cellphone to her ear, blinking a little bit at the substantial level of interference - plus really weird noises - in the background. o O (What the....what's going on?). "Sousuke?" she ventures. "Where ARE you?! We had an important Classic Literature exam today, Kanzaki-sensei threatened to fail you if you don't show up this week to retake it!"
Akiko Obata spots the vehicles from high above; and begins diving towards them. Still a bat. She flies over the chase; keeping a few dozen feet above the cars.
If anyone currently participating in the car chase scene stopped to look at the sky... well, they'd probably crash and die a horrible burning death due to taking their eyes off the road and/or the bullets flying everywhere. Hmmm.
Alright, let's try that again. If anyone had particularly sharp eyes and just happened to look in a direction something rather like 'up', they might see a constant flare leaving behind a glowing engine trail, waaaaaay up there. And it's following the cars. That's no aircraft or jet; it's a genuine UFO!
Or at least, it's an Emblem Frame, which for all intents and purposes, is the same thing in this interplanar context. True to her words over her faction's channel, Mint Blancmanche IS indeed keeping an eye on the car chase down below. She can't make out details, like, say, the identity of the drivers in the Fiat or the vague shape of a bat, and she can barely tell that there's a firefight going on at this height, but... hey, that's what her Frame's sensors are for. So for now, Mint observes.
Wait... 40 kilos? Worth of weapons? Sousuke's completely nonchalant response to them losing weight makes Mao completely speechless for a moment, "..." She stares at Kurz for a second and dives around her seat, pushing Bluno out of the way. His head makes a loud thud against the side of the cramped Fiat's door as she scrambles to see what kind of weapons Sousuke is hiding. The weapon's cache causes her brow to twitch, "SOUSUKE YOU IDIOT! Why didn't you tell us this before?!" Mao's glare is most likely similar to the same kind Kaname is giving him over the phone right now.
She's too busy to notice what's going on in the night sky, but once she has her weapons, you can be sure nothing is safe. Not the SUVs, the vampire or the UFO.
...Poor, poor, poor Mooks. They didn't deserve this! They didn't! They just wanted to be happy and free and made men! And now a psychotic woman who's nearly naked and some male model are shooting at them from the back of a FIAT! WRRRRRRRRRRRRY?
...Oh, who are we kidding, no one cares about the mooks! The Bat is ignored by them, being, well, just a bat, and, besides, the Mooks are busy with the driving and the shooting and yelling threats at the Mithral team in Italian, y'see.
Kurz's shout is synchronized with Mao's as he stares, jaw agape, at his driver. "SOUSUKE YOU IDIOT! Why didn't you tell us this before?!" He spins around, opens the other half of the seat, and sparkles overtake his eyes as he pulls out a large high-calibre sniper rifle. "The Arctic Warfare Magnum! Ha ha!"
...KANAME!? "Chidori? Oh!" *PWANG* goes a bullet off the door. He looks in the rearview mirror at the pursuing Sedans, before it's suddenly shot off. Goody! "Fail? I hadn't thought I'd missed that many exams..." Mao and Kurz yell at him at this point, causing him to call over his shoulder, "I didn't tell you before?" ...oops. Oh well! He holds his hand back, waiting patiently for someone to hand him a weapon.
Yes, he's going to drive, with a cellphone in one hand and a high-caliber firearm in the other. The scary part is he probably knows how.
One could almost see her stamping her foot down. If she were there next to him, she'd either be really scared, or really determined, or even smack him upside the head. "SOUSUKE YOU NEVER TELL ME WHERE YOU'RE GOING ANYWAYS!" Kaname yells, completely losing her temper. But this is cooled, for just a moment, when she hears the sharp crack of a bullet near him. It's obvious that this particular aspect of him is just one of the many ways as to how he drives her crazy, however, and her tone shifts from angry to worried. ".....it sounds like a war zone out there! Just WHAT are yo--augh, nevermind, I don't think I WANT to know!"
And then, something lands on the roof. Specifically, a rather large fanged bat dives in front of the car; pulling up at the last moment, and doesn't reappear. The roof, however - does receive a rather large 'thunk' as Akiko hits it; and proceeds to transform back into her normal self; appropriatly holding onto the top of the car.
Mao cackles happily as she gets passed a very mean looking shotgun. She stands back up again through the sunroof, this time she leans back so that she's actually half sitting, half braced against the outside of the car.
Right at that time, Bluno decides to wake up. He stares upwards and his eyes end up looking straight at something he should not be seeing, "Oooooooooooooooooooooooooohc I see.." Mao looks down and slams her heeled foot into Bluno's face, knocking him out again. "Don't -anyone- turn around. I catch you looking and you're dead, right after we deal with these Mafia guys." She's serious and she's pissed.
But that distraction is more than enough for Akiko to safely land of the roof. When Mao looks up, she finds herself face to face with a somewhat unhealthy looking young woman (unhealthy being the skin color). "AH! Where the hell did you come from?! Get off my car!" She levels her shotgun at the girl. This is war and her life is on the line, she's not scared to open fire and she does. BANG goes the shotgun.
Up in the Trick Master, Mint... is having a moment of uncharacteristic relaxation. Despite the insanity taking place down below, the telepath has candy in her mouth, the white stick poking out making it very obvious that yes, she's eating a lolipop like a little kid. Hey, this WAS en route for the blue-haired Angel; she'd been on her way back from buying sweets originating from a 1920's era plane-
Back to the subject at hand, Mint frowns slightly. Something about the situation down below is bothering her. Maybe it's the trace of the very faint thoughts she's picking up from the people down below, or maybe it's the twelve-cars-chasing-one that strikes her as odd. Thus, Trick Master starts descending slowly, eventually stopping at about eight stories up- far enough away that the Frame's shape is hard to make out, but close enough for the people down below to tell that no, this most defintely isn't a jet.
The problem with Sicily, y'know, is that it's, well, an island. That poor, poor, Poor Mook. After all. Bad vision. Tight Curve. Bad combination, as an SUV goes plowing through a guard rail, slamming into an antique store with a loud shattering crash. Oooooh, smokey! Still, there's several other SUV's left, and they're slotting into the gap left by Mao's first victim. The fact that there's a nice young creepy lady on the roof helping distract them doesn't hurt at all! ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
Annnnnnnnnnnd then Mint comes zooming in. Mooks being Mooks, they do the logical thing. The ones who can't shoot at the Fiat take a potshot at Mint's crazy little frameything! Wheeeeeeee!
Kurz's face lights up, only to promptly fall. ", Nee-san, why must you be so cruel! With a defeated sigh, he hands Sousuke an MP5 submachinegun and then sets his rifle up through the backseat window, ignoring the thump on the roof and the sporadic bullets ricocheting off of the car's frame. Mao can deal with the Mafia Airborne, he'll take care of the guys on their trail.
"I'm...driving!" Sousuke replies. He omits the fact that he's also being shot at, because that's probably obvious, and he doesn't reallly want to worry her that much anyWHAT THE HELL A BAT. Sousuke swerves to avoid it, but that doesn't work so well as there's a loud THUMP on the roof. The possibility of vampires does not even cross his mind. "Something's on the roof!" he shouts back, and then adds, "I'm turning!" as he rapidly spins the wheel, skidding around a corner and down another cobblestone road. City limit's aren't that much further, once they're in the open they'll be in trouble unless they can take out most of these pursuers beforehand. Fortunately, he brought rocket launchers for just such an eventuality. (*BANG* goes the shotgun.) "Was the examination difficult?" Sousuke suddenly asks into his cellphone as another bullet pangs off the doorframe. Bringing his hands back to accept the submachinegun, he cocks it with his teeth, then says, "I'll need to study for the makeup."
Kurz's face lights up, only to promptly fall. "Ah, Nee-san, why must you be so cruel!" With a defeated sigh, he hands Sousuke an MP5 submachinegun and then sets his rifle up through the backseat window, ignoring the thump on the roof and the sporadic bullets ricocheting off of the car's frame. Mao can deal with the Mafia Airborne, he'll take care of the guys on their tail. The mook driving the lead car, if he's not surprised by Batwoman landing on the Fiat, will definitely be surprised when his windshield explodes in front of him. And maybe his head exploding as well, those .338 rounds can be nasty as many a Counter-Strike player can attest to.
Kaname sighs, planting her hand on her hip and turning around slightly. "It's Kanzaki-sensei, so of course it was difficult!" She was more irritated at the fact that Sousuke was OBVIOUSLY avoiding the issue (ie. being shot) and trying to distract her with talk about class. Well, THAT WASN'T GONNA FLY, BUDDY! "And of course you have to study! The only question is when you'll actually have the time to do so while you're trying your best not to get killed! Should you even be on the PHONE?" She sighs, and mutters. "I can always call back, you know. When you're less out of the line of fire."
What the hell was he doing out there anyways? Granted she knows he can't exactly tell her where he is. Aren't ops covert anyways? Or he COULD, he just doesn't want to let her know. But why? He usually told her everything! .....when she found out about something, so it's a little post-facto, but still! And he was military, he probably had to go through a lot of points....
Or maybe he had an overseas girlfriend?
Did he have girlfriends at every stop?
Her eyebrow starts spasming epileptically.
Akiko Obata is shot at. Right through the roof of the car. She goes flying off; her body careening past the windows; but she manages to dig a hand into the side rear of the car (just near where the trunk would be if it had one); holding on with one hand for a moment (yes; the hand is physically dug into the frame); the massive wound visable in her chest.
Thats another top ruined. Damn planar citizens and the ruining of the designer clothes.
She digs her other hand in for grip, and attempts to kick at the nearest tire. Hard.
Y'know what happens when you shoot a watermelon with a large gun?
Yeah. That's what the inside of the lead SUV looks like right now. Well, not that it matters, really. See, the driver's dead, and, well, that means you've got an SUV going out of control. The roofmen are chucked out of the sunrooms. They're lucky! THey might, feasibly, survive, and come back later as ELITE MOOKS. As for the other mobsters inside...well...the SUV starts rolling. And keeps rolling. And slams off an embankment, landing in a drainage ditch, crumpling, annnnd that's when there's the sound of a few shots. Someone convlusively squeezed the trigger, the shot's good, annnnn...
KA-PWOOMPF!
The bullet slams into the gastank. WHeeee explodies!
ELEVEN FOES REMAIN.
Mao looks triumphant as she blasts the girl off the roof of the car. "Hah! Take that you *****. Teach you to hitch a ride on -my-car." She puts the shotgun down and leans it carefully against the dash as well as she can before reaching for one of the disposable rocket launchers. "Let's see you dodge this!" She pulls the trigger right as Akiko kicks the tire. How the missile flies will be completely determined by how Sousuke reacts.
A message is being passed to some of the black SUVs as a rumble is heard in the distance at the outskirts of town. It is not a happy sounding rumble at all. It's something on the loud and very mechanical side.
Now that Mint's much closer to the ground, she's more or less able to eyeball the cars down below; the information being filtered through her sensors- estimated weight, potential manufacturers, even the horsepower inherent in their engines- are cross-checked against a large database with adjustments made for interplanar variations. The chasee turns up as a Fiat, a car of Italian make- tiny, cheap, potentially old, and reknowned for its instability. The chasers? Roughly, mob cars.
And then there's the woman clinging to the top of the Fiat- a woman who, according to the telepath's sensors, should be stiffer than a two-by-four. Before Mint can make heads or tails of that, the Italians down below fire at the large Frame. The 'pingpingpingpingpingpingping' sound alerts Mint more than whatever (superficial) damage those bullets might be causing, she calmly slows down the Trick Master until it's riiiight behind the Italian cars.
Her ears twitch. She'd just gotten the Frame repaired, too. With a slight sigh, Mint clicks on her rarely-used speaker system. "I would not suggest firing upon a relic of Lost Technology able to blow holes in battle cruisers, especially when said relic belongs to a member of the Interplanar Peacekeeping Agency," she says sweetly. The first explosion'd car is ignored. Traces of something very large and mechanical, however, do not- Mint brings the Trick Master back up a bit, the telepath sweeping the area with her eyes AND her sensors for whatever that is. "What the...?"
One down. Kurz's smile sparkles as he cocks back the bolt and loads in the next shot. As the Fiat takes the curve hard, he braces himself against one side of the car's wall and holds his shot, which is convenient as Bluno elects to wake up again. "Wha-" WHACK. AWP- er- AWMs also make a handy bludgeoning tool as well.
Hold on a sec, there's someone hanging on to the side of the car. Kurz sticks his head out and notices someone with a sucking chest wound doing something people with sucking chest wounds normally don't do. She must be made of the same stuff the Lieutenant Commander and Sousuke are made of. He ducks his head back in, and a moment later, a grenade comes tumbling out of the window with a nonchalant, "Here, hold this." If he's lucky, she falls for it. If not, the first SUV to survive the RPG will run it over.
Sousuke does not SEE Akiko so much as SENSE her; having been a soldier as long as he has, he's become somewhat adept at sensing murderous intent in the air. Also, she just hit the damn car, and that's slowing them down even more. "It's not a problem!" Sousuke announces to Kaname. "Just...hold on a second." He drops the phone into his lap and then sliiiides over to the side - where if the grenade doesn't get Akiko, the dumpster Sousuke just barely avoided probably will rather nicely smash her head in and knock her off the car.
He grabs the phone again. "What did you want to talk about? It's very noisy here!"
Akiko Obata looks at the grenade as its coming towards her. She also sees the dumpster. She can't really deal with both; so makes a judgement call. She digs one of her hands out of the car, grabs the grenade...and then instead of oh say...doing something silly like /holding on to it/ - she simply throws it back into the window right beside her. The one that people have been shooting out of. Hopefully; it'll go off soon. Depends on how long that '7 seconds' is.
But then, she's smashed into a dumpster; crumpling her body against it and knocking her off of the car and into the street/road/whatever.
Oh /boy/ is that going to suck in a second.
Kaname's mouth opens. "I thought I TOLD you! I called because...."
She missed him.
She was worried.
She wanted to KICK his ass for not telling her where he went or when he was coming back.
But mostly because she was worried.
Like hell if she's saying anything like that while he's getting shot at though. Or, well, EVER. At least not until the novel after the next one after this one.
"--because Kanzaki-sensei will FAIL you if I don't tell you about the retake!" she sputters. "I'm just gonna go leave my notes at your apartment. You need it, right?" Huff. Men. Always shooting at things. -_-
....Poor Poor Mooks. They keep getting blown up and shot at and all that! Ah well! That's what a life of drugs and debauchery get you! Being blown up by several Japanese (Or Whatever) Teenagers With Large Guns And Ludicrous amounts of military training. Really. Smarties don't do drugs, cause they don't want to get EXPLODED.
'Luckily', those Mooks aren't smart! That's why...well...GRENADE'D! The RPGs bad enough, but the grenade goes off with enough force to flip an SUV backwards, squishing the poor roofgunner into a smear and smashing it backwards into a following SUV. Not enough to crush it, but, well, the follow up SUV is out a gunner as well, seeing as how he goes flying from the impact.
Remember, kids: Always Wear A Seatbelt.
Mint's sensors pick up three giant mechas on the edge of town, lying in wait. In the database, the would be registered as RK-92 Savages. While the MITHRIL folks would normally make mincemeat out of these Arm Slaves, their backing entirely too little firepower to go up against Arm Slaves.
Mao laughs happily, as if she's having bucket loads of fun while she tosses the now useless rocket launcher to the side. She reaches back down for her shotgun. With the girl now -off- their car, she begins firing at the SUVs again, determined to use up all of her slugs.
Where did that grenade come from? You see, Kurz was sitting right next to the window, and in one fluid motion, catches the grenade and tosses it back out the window behind him. He saw that coming as well. Bluno woozily blinks and starts to mumble, which gets him another rifle butt to the head before Kurz joins Melissa in blazing away mightily behind him. No insane laughter though, he saves that for those successful missions to the other side of the onsen.
Oh! Right. She had mentioned that, hadn't she OH HEY BULLETS AND A VAMPIRE. Except that's totally not a vampire. It must be some kind of...person. Thankfully, Sousuke just killed her and then probably the SUVs killed her a bunch more times. Sousuke no longer even registers her as a threat; if she's alive, she's surely got more broken bones than she has whole ones.
"Failing would be a problem," Sousuke concedes. "Thank you for your assistance Chidori. -- not good TURNING!!"
There's a truck in the way. Sousuke spins the wheel to the left rapidly, dropping gun and phone as he does so, somehow managing to slip the tiny vehicle between truck and buildings. The same can probably not be said for several of the SUVs. He grabs the phone again as soon as he can. "I'll be back to take the make-up soon!" he says. "Failing to keep pace with you would be a problem."
Akiko Obata is run over by a large number of SUV's.
He was going to keep her on the phone until he injures himself. Kaname SIGHS exasperatedly, hearing the roar of battle somewhere in the background as Sousuke...turns, or whatever. And dodges whatever it is heading his way. Wait, was he dodging? "It would be a problem," she mutters. "Unless you want to spend the rest of your mission out of sight and out of mind. Just.....AUGH, just be careful." It's not like she didn't want to talk to him, he's been gone for DAYS. But she knew it was necessary, and so she hangs up the phone, still looking somewhat irritated.
Mao tosses the now completely empty shotgun to the side and picks up another rocket launcher. She blinks and ducks her head when Mint goes buzzing over her head and fires off the warning shots, "What the f-?!" She switches to Mandarin and begins cursing again, mostly because it makes her feel better.
She stands back up again, this time with a rocket launcher on her shoulder. She'll worry about Mint later, first she's got to get rid of the other SUVs, "INCOMING!" She yells with gusto.
The Arm Slaves that get fired upon react instantly by making their appearance and begin to open fire on the Frame Emblem with big Mecha sized machine guns.
The last turn sends the backseat passengers tumbling about in a very chaotic (and platonic) fashion, with the AWM beaning Mr. Traitor once more on its own volition. Kurz finds himself on the floor, looking up at Sousuke with fire in his eyes. "Dumbass! Next time, warn me before- OOH!" Looks like that's not the only thing worth looking up at from the floor! Hellllllo commando style Mao!
Click. She hung up on him. ...he's not sure whether to be happy that his attention is now free, or upset that she hung up on him! Arg! Either way, he drops the phone for good this time, and leans out the window, aiming his SMG backward as cover-fire. "We're almost out of the town!" he warns.
Ahhhhhhhh, lovely! ROCKET FIRE! Poor sadfaced Mooks. Look at their sad and/or terrified faces, as one of the lead cars is rocketed out of existence. Poor Mook SUV. It's EXPLODEDATED. Mmmm, shrapnel. By now...well...the SUVs are having to back off a bit. Too much ordinance, and, well, there's all these WRECKS in the way making it unsafe to drive. How horrifying! THe result, anyhoo, is that the SUVs are pretty much picked off by now, as a real danger. I mean...THE COMMANDO WOMAN HAS A FREAKING ROCKET LAUNCHER! IN A FIAT! Mooks are pretty stupid, and have no real danger sense, but they do realize there are few things more dangerous than an angry asian woman in a bikini with a very large gun! Those who haven't realized that are moaning, groaning, shredded, smeared, or crisped along the Uzru Team's flight out of town, y'see.
Human-scaled bullets? Yeah, sure, not much of a problem there. Mecha-scaled bullets? Yeah, that might hurt a bit. This is why Mint tries to spin the Trick Master out of the way; even though hers isn't the fastest Emblem Frame out there, the telepath still finds herself surprised as a few shells /spang/ off her craft's body as she passes the Slaves by, rocking her around a bit. "Those first-generation robots hit me?!" As the blue-haired girl brings her Frame back around for another pass, Mint grimaces slightly. "I suppose I was a little /too/ much like Forte for a moment there..."
Once again zipping towards the Slaves (and the car chase), the Trick Master releases a pair of missiles at its opponents, following them up with another needling barrage of pinpoint beams. Okay, so Forte's policy of overwhelming firepower might have something to it...
"... ..." Mao becomes slightly alarmed when Kurz doesn't finish his sentence. She looks down, only to notice where Kurz's eyes are. ".... YOU IDIOT!" She kicks the man in the head, really hard. I mean -really- hard. "I TOLD YOU NOT TO TURN AROUND! ARG!!" She kicks him a second time for good measure, "Dumbass!" This is followed by a string of profanities in Cantonese. No one else in the car might be able to understand, but it's evident that none of it is even remotely close to pleasant.
The sounds of missiles and Arm Slaves firing machine guns is enough to save Kurz from a very painful death though as Mao looks up, "Savages?! S***" She ducks down into her seat, "Sousuke! Try to avoid them!"
One Savage goes down to the missiles while a second one becomes heavily damaged. The third manages to dodge a bit and fire at the same time.
CRACK. Luckily, Kurz is made of hard stuff, otherwise he'd be just as out as Mr. Traitor. "I- I- Uh- free shot?", is all he can offer as a defense in between beatings. Fortunately for him, rescue comes in the form of enemy Arm Slaves! Wait. "There might be another rocket launcher in here," he yells as he crawls into the weapon space. But will he find one in time?
Sousuke says, with his usual unruffled tones, "How? I can't go offroad, this car's barely surviving as it is." He does keep swerving to avoid enemy fire, but that's about all he CAN do. "It seems we've got some kind of fire support..." He squints at Trick Master. "Unusual craft. Think it's with us?"
He adds, without even looking, "Kurz, there should be one final panzerfaust under Sgt. Major Mao's seat. You've used all the others." Of course he keeps a mental ammo count for the entire team. What, you're surprised?
This time, Mint's ready- barrage unleashed, the Trick Master peels off and corkscrews straight up into the air as the remaining Arm Slave opens fire, the bullets scoring only a few glancing shots on the Lost Technology. At the peak of her flight, Mint turns right back around and nosedives back down at the remaining (one and a half) Savage(s), the telepath narrowing her eyes in the H.A.L.O-powered cockpit. Behind her, the engines begin trailing what look like feathers, which quickly dissipate into the air.
"Flyer Dance!" The orbiting beam satellites flare a pale blue for a moment before suddenly zipping down towards the Arm Slaves, erratic flight paths leveling out as they arc through the air and open fire in long, prolonged bursts. Beams lance out with incredible accuracy and /carve/ up, down, and to the side, attempting to carve the robots' appendages off. Mint's not trying to blow up and kill; she just wants to stop them.
A glance is given towards the Fiat, white bunny-like ears twitching slightly. Mint is at least passingly familiar with two of those minds' mental signatures. She's also got a few questions for them later.
The 1.5 remaining Savages are easily dismembered by Mint's lasers. In a last ditch effort though, the one still semi-functioning Savage launches itself at the Flame Emblem
Mao just whistles, impressed by the display of firepower. This doesn't mean she's forgiven Kurz though. Oh no. Oh most definitely not. She glares at Kurz, "We'll settle this later."
Lock 'n load. Kurz grumps as he pops up next to Mao and pulls the trigger on the Panzerfaust. "Fine, I'll buy the drinks." Boom!
*CLANG!* "What the- get off!!" Mint squeals as the mostly-gone Savage completely takes her by surprise. The Trick Master isn't made for close-range combat at ALL, so all it can really do is wobble in mid-air to try and shake the off the clinger. The beam satellites just sort of... hang there, Mint being understandably unwilling to fire on herself.
For a moment, it seems as if Kurz's rocket is going to hit Mint- and then by some stroke of luck, the Frame twists around, the AS-clinging side to the Fiat.
Kurz's missile flies true as it hits the AS with a spectacular explosion. The pilot managed to escape at the very last second when his radar detected something that was not supposed to be headed his way. The ASes are now no more and the coast is completely clear.
That's right! Which means it's time for some answers for Mint! Right?
...RIGHT?
"Hang on," Sousuke suddenly announces, and veers sharply to the right. As he does so, he pulls out his good old remote control switch from...from somewhere, and flips one of them. There's a rather sizeable explosion in front of them, and then suddenly a ramp, hidden in the brush Sousuke just blew up, is revealed to be in front of them. The car takes off into the air, soaring surprisingly far for its limited horsepower, and then -- then it vanishes off all perception.
In the hangar of the ECS-equipped VTOL they have just landed inside, Sousuke looks to his two partners, and at the rather remarkably long skidmark he has created in the landing bay. Not a bad landing, he decides.
The rocket more or less demolishes the AS clinging onto the Trick Master in a very pretty explosion... that is, it's pretty if you're not engulfed in it like Mint is. Her Frame suffers superficial damage, but the... turbulence almost knocks the telepath's craft to the ground, and the next few seconds are filled with trying to recalibrate her balance AND the Trick Master.
When Mint recovers- BOOM. And then.. nothing. ... ooh yes, there're going to be /many/ more questions for the MITHRIL people once she catches up to them.
POST:
============================== News Broadcasts ===============================
Message: 10/10 Posted Author
News From Sicily Fri Apr 07 The Associated Press
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newscast from Sicily in the as-yet un-nicknamed world of the ARM Slaves (OOCly, Full Metal Panic! Plane)
"Last night, a massive gun battle brokeout in the streets of Tatanika, on the island of Sicily! The battle began when a car, fleeing the site of a party at the Barbara family estate, was pursued by what some witnesses report as up to thirteen black sedans and SUVs, with drivers and passengers armed with machineguns. The passengers of the car were reportedly also heavily armed."
Blurry image of a speeding, shot-up Fiat, with a woman in a raggety evening dress firing what appears to be a ROCKET LAUNCHER at the pursuing SUV.
"The battle continued into the countryside surrounding the village, where three unknown A.S. units of Russian make were engaged in a fight with an unknown aircraft. The car's inhabitants also fired upon the ARM Slaves."
Equally blurry photo of RK-92 Savage-type ARM Slaves shooting bullets at Mint Blancmanche's Trick Master, followed by an image of someone else in the Fiat, with shoulder-length blonde hair in a tattered tuxedo vest and shirt firing another rocket at a nearly-destroyed Savage, which is clinging to the Trick Master.
"The vehicle disappeared into the brush outside the village, and no trace of it has been seen since. Authorities are investigating the matter and we will continue to report as the situation develops."
(Questions and investigations to Sousuke Sagara, Kurz Weber, or Melissa Mao!)
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