Faith
Distance: 3, Nemesis[3]
Faith: 4, Hyper[4]
Immanuel: 4, Hyper[6]
Interceptors, Detachment A: 6
Interceptors, Detachment B: 4
Interceptors, Main Swarm: 5
Copy that Sailor.
>>Eight frozen husks explode across the frontlines, ice and snow haemorrhaging through broken vessels. Sixteen spears of ice streak down from the heavens. Sixteen warheads to bring doom to the allied forces.
Their blast radius is massive, wide swathes of sky engulfed by cryonic energies in short order, each detonation accompanied by a sense of profound cold, catching adventurer and interceptor alike in their wake sending frozen napalm and vanquished adventurers raining down into the seas below. The interceptors, they do not mind. If anything they flew straight for the blasts, their frames visibly wreathed with coronas of icy radiance as they sweep around into the shattered allied formations.
Auxiliary thrusters flare to life along the along the fuselage of the approaching League interceptors, cold flames illuminating with unearthly candescence as they spin a full ninety degrees, bringing their wings perpendicular to their initial trajectory in a rather extreme imitation of the cobra maneuver. Autocannons deploy from their underbellies, stubby cylindrical units ringed with spinning mechanisms that spew a frightful deluge of ice and snow, their swivelling mountings angling them more to the side than anywhere else - with their present velocity they need more impulse lateral than forward, they're practically running the bullets into the targets.
The stall buys them about a split-second's worth of fire. A split second before they blitz past their effective range. Further maneuvering extends this to about a whole half-second of fire, the interceptors pivoting as they blow past their targets shots roaring not only from the front but the flanks as well. Those who raised shields find they cannot turn around in time, be from the sheer speed of the assault, or because they find their shields frozen in place, affixed by the hail-fire they had just caught. The casualty count rises steeply, scores of adventurers freezing solid and plummeting from the skies.
At this point the towers kick into play and beam power into the interceptors, laser-thermal engines flaying to life rocketing them away at an impossible angle. Whatever cryogenic munitions remain is purged as a smokescreen, a cloud of freezing mist to obscure vision and dissuade any would-be attempts at pursuing.
A brutal opening. A wide area bombardment to scatter the formations with interceptors rushing out to cut down the disarrayed and fleeing forces. Paradoxically as a result, most of the casualties took place near the edge of each blast zone.
All except two - the blast zones of Warheads 1 and 2.
In the case of Warhead 1, there was a malfunction of sorts. A malfunction by the name of Immanuel Gottlieb. As the warhead streaked towards him, the knight stretched out his hand, channeling unstable energies into the heart of the weapon. The explosion was not of ice and cold.
No, it was darkness, turbulent darkness. A fuzzy black expanse pulsating with a great monstrous heartbeat. One that became one hundred as it ignited with eyes emerald green, raw feline energy condensing into a clowder of spectral black cats. It was not enough to save his
meatshields comrades. The presence of angry magic cats on one's person proves to be awfully distracting and most crash be it into a wall or the nitrogen sea below. It could not save his comrades, but it could doom his foes. The League interceptors acted as magical ramjets and it just so happened they didn't focus just ice energy. No no no, they focused the feline energy too. Right into their engine block. They did not survive the wrath that ensued.
Warhead 2 was a different matter altogether. The warhead detonated and the interceptors began their attack pattern as expected, however something happened as their strafing run ended, namely they didn't escape. Or rather they couldn't escape. The beams aimed at their underbellies had missed, trajectories bedeviled by Distance Dark's spacial manipulation. Without the thermal energy of the beams all they had were their limited auxiliary thrusters and their residual velocity, the velocity they had just bled away for their attack run. In other words, they were shit out of luck as a wide angle blast of pink energy ripped through their formation, Doki Doki Energy surging and refocusing into homing tendrils to hunt down the stragglers. The interceptor frames proved to be markedly more resistant to energy attacks - layers of plating vaporizing away and attenuating the sub-beams as they lanced through their fuselages, it wasn't enough to stop them, but it did by time, precious seconds for the interceptor cores to shift out of each beam's path. The only permanent damage these fortunate few survivors suffer being from the HORRIFIC DEBILITATING RADIATION NOW COURSING THROUGH THEIR SYSTEMS, radiation under the control of Eagle Squadron's own Faith Tatsumaki.
All in all, in that shitshow of an opening, Eagle Squadron had cut down more than four times their own number and without a single hit to boot.
The successful interceptors streak up in the the skies, scattering as they regroup and regenerate. Below, the allied forces regroup. Casualties are high, but most have weathered the storm and like the cancer they will adapt - through the culling of their own, through the loss of those who couldn't make it, slowly but surely refining those that remain into a killing edge. Radio chatter picks up. Combat doctrines shift, shift to what worked. It was a failure as a whole, but there successes amidst the skirmishes, and from this they will learn. Mobility boosts, AoEs, sabotage.
They are not the only ones planning.
In the League's own network there are fewer voices but there are voices still and now one calls out above all others.
AWACS ReaperEye <<Magus Squadron, move to intercept.
>>Faith
Status: Fine
World Line: 1 1 1 3 4 6 4 2 4 1
Alterations: 2
Resolve: 0
Distance
Status: Fine
World Line: 6 6 5 4 4 4 4 6 1 3
Alterations: 5
Resolve: 3
Immanuel
Status: Fine, 1 railgun
World Line: 3 5 6 6 1 5 1 2 3 3
Alterations:3
Resolve: 3
Cynthia
Status: Fine
Details: Staying in formation
Allied Forces
Status: Somewhat depleted
Details: Regrouping and preparing for Round 2
Ice Weeds
Status: Full Strength
Details: Beaming energy to the Crystalline Interceptors
Crystalline Interceptors
Status: Somewhat depleted, few permanent losses
Details: Swarm is scattering up above to recover and regroup
Cynthia
A pureblood demon, classification: succubus. A ranged skirmisher who uses fear and charm magic for battlefield control striking a balance between harassing fire and decisive hits. She has three vessels in this battle consisting of two UAV fire support vessels and a humanoid spotter vessel.
Allied Forces
A small force of random students and adventurers whose standard loadouts have been augmented with jetpacks and airburst napalm launchers. Meatshields and fire support basically. Their combat effectiveness increases as they learn from previous skirmishes.
Minato, your transformation actually goes fine. You look like Masked Knight Gaia as opposed to y'know, a member of one of the branch families. Are the anomalies caused by Gandiva somehow? They seem to pop up whenever you summon it and it seems strangely accurate which isn't really part of Gandiva's supposed benefits package. Anyways, Shef Requiems the girl into handing over her phone to you for safekeeping.
Shef, best bet would... actually it'd be Maria actually.
"Yes, but that's where we live. Why?"Guessing going through her house is out of the question then.
Yuki, you stuff your mouth with ice cream, rev your chainsaw, and get ready to fuck a bitch up. That's a lie by the way, you're always ready to fuck a bitch up.
Author
Topic: Tengoku no Owari SI IC: Yuki Is (Not) Fine (Read 211077 times)