4861/Hokkaido Heist

Hokkaido Heist
Date of Scene:	10 December 2016
Location:	Neo-Fuji
Synopsis:	From a watery insertion to an intense indoor assault, Maaka and a team of assorted specialists infiltrate an R&D compound in the subarctic mountains of Hokkaido. Many cyborgs and droids get trashed, and valuable prototypes and data get raided with glee.
Cast of Characters:	571, Corona Arclite, William Pauwel, Reina Kinney, Kotone Yamakawa, 62, 673, 304, 1065, 1007, Heinkel Wolfe (Dropped)

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Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    HOKKAIDO, JAPAN - DECEMBER 11th, 2097

    23:00 JST
    -3 degrees celsius
    https://youtu.be/6miaTf1gF4g

    The Hokkaido research facility is over a mile away from where the sub carrying you is, currently. The sub's Chinese in identification, Singaporean if you want to be pedantic about who actually built it, and belongs to the Sino-Pacific Coalition, an alliance of nations ranging from China, to Singapore, to Thailand and other smaller countries, sans the Izunagi-run Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, and the United Korean Republic. The Sinos, to oversimplify things, have their own axe to grind against the Izunagi. Given they're currently in the middle of their own problems with the Slavs, it's up to you guys to do their dirty work. Fine by Maaka, she prefers working with people she can count on over any one nation.

    The Sino nuclear submarine is just outside of Izunagi scanning range, and the alarms signaling insertion blare from within the vessel. "All hands, all hands, remain at your posts and prepare for launch at bays three, four, five, and six." The Captain orders, as a group of sailors at the launch bays help with last-minute preparation for the jump.

    Everyone who lacks equipment of their own will be issued sneaking suits designed for subarctic temperatures, wetsuits basically, with oxygen masks and tanks to go with them. The suits will keep them warm, as well as refract light in ways that will make them impossible to spot by the naked eye or imaging software, with coating that scrambles other means of detection as well. Not to be outdone, they will also be given either a sidearm or a submachine gun with a suppressor attached, for stealth purposes. All in all, the equipment is high quality work, black ops grade that should double as light body armor too.

    Everyone will be going into insertion pods, basically torpedoes designed to insert occupants into enemy territory stealthily underwater. They're not exactly made for comfort, but fitting in each pod won't be a problem.

    "Good luck, wish our guys were going in with you." One sailor says, before flashing the team a salute. His fellow servicemen and women do the same, before a countdown is given.

    "TEN...NINE...EIGHT...SEVEN...SIX...FIVE...FOUR...THREE...TWO...ONE. LAUNCHING NOW!"

    The pods launch, and the g-forces that result are intense for a brief moment. Everyone, even Maaka, is forced against their seat as the pods rocket through the waters, streaking past patrol drones that float amid the dark, frozen depths.

    Eventually the pods slow down, and the hatches open. Maaka disembarks from Pod 1, her armor providing all the oxygen she needs as she begins to move towards the objective. The HUD readout everyone sees in their gear will point northeast, where they're meant to swim. "Fan out, three meter spread." Maaka says over radio, using a small burst every few meters from her thrusters to keep her moving. Everyone will be using similar thruster packs, to do the same. They're the opposite of cumbersome, surprisingly enough, but it's recommended to swim anyways. It's good exercise!

    Of course, patrol drones will be swimming by as you approach, but they should be easy to dodge. Infrared sensors will only reach so far before you get nothing but little blots, and people tend to get confused with large local fish anyways.

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona Arclite probably had the least issue with the torpedo pod's lack of space. Being she is somewhat on the smaller side of humanoid scales at only just over five feet tall. Plus a fluffy tail that was apparently used for extra cushioning, if anyone picked up her light snoring over the radio earlier. When the vixen said she could catch a nap almost anywhere she apparently was not just being a smartass.

Fortunately it wasn't a very heavy sleep and the warnings they were reaching the lauch point had woke her right up.

Minutes later the pods are coming to a stop and she pops out of the hatch of her pod as does everyone else, sporting the same suit and gear as provided at least for the time being. She wasn't worried about the cold or the water, but no point in passing up free bonuses. Never know when it might make a difference. Though she did have to replace the normal breating mouthpiece with her own to fit her muzzle but that was hardly a difficult modification.

Gotta be ready for anything. Probably why she took one of the suppressed sidearms too, even if she has plenty of guns of her own. Forgesweeper wasn't exactly subtle after all.

But right now, swimming! With an occasional bit of thrust to keep position and momentum. And avoiding drones.

William Pauwel has posed:
    What happens when you stuff a powered armor into a torpedo? Nothing good. Fortunately the trip doesn't take too much time. The screw-propelled cylinder screeches into position and pops open and allows Will to... To sort of kind of shimmy himself out. It's hard going. He's kind of in something that practically doubles his size in pretty much every dimension.

And there's... There's something in there with him.

He hauls it out with him. They look like... Enormous rubber sacs. "Okay. Uh. So we need to go up, right? Okay, opening valves--"

                                 -=FOOOMF=-                                

    Suddenly, the world goes white and red. Or rather, a whole bunch of colorfully painted swimming balloons inflate into everything. The T-45 starts... floating vaguely in the direction of the target.

Reina Kinney has posed:
So yeah, Reina's being dispatched to another operation. Standard drill, right?

Except she's being put into a tight suit and being sent in what looks like a miniaturized missile or something. At least that's for part of the way, then she's on her own, swimming the rest of the way. Yes, GUARDIANS taught her how to swim and things like that, but they never taught her how to do something like this. Which is why she really hates having to tie her hair into a bun as she prepares herself to be deployed, glad that she snuck a scrunchee into her pockets just before she got suited up.

The pod is a bit cramped, and it makes Reina a bit more irritated at this whole thing, but she goes along with it, eagerly awaiting the launch. When they finally do launch, Reina suddenly gasps at the abrupt thrust as the pod goes shooting through the water, and she tries not to gag.

"Ugh... dammit..." She says, wondering how she'd managed to go for many years without getting motion sick in any way. She takes a few deep breaths, and the sensation passes. After a few moments, the pods break away, and Reina is going for a swim.

"Now I'm starting to feel it," Reina comments as she finds herself a little more free to move around and she swims along with the others, dodging the obstacles with ease. "This sure beats swimming at the beach, that's for sure!"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone had no idea what she'd be waking up to in the morning. For now she's crammed into a torpedo wrapped up in her optic cameo armour and feeling like some sort of packaged action figure in a Gatcpaon Machine. The mental imageis amusing to her but she also knows she can't let her thoughts stray today. She braces as she's fired out of the tropedo tube with everyone else. the G-forces hit her hard but she's able to deal with it, she knows it will be soon hitting the target. They were to get in, get the technology and get the hell out as well.

Maaka was here, so was Corona, William. She knew them all well. Black Arachnia was a very old Union operative, Genji hadd proven himself for some time, with Heinkel service record with the union spoke for herself too. Devon was new but seemed to hold his own and Reina had been around for long time.

Kotone was finally feeling like her choice to join the Union was working out pretty well. She now was heading towrds the target and she was getting ready to deploy, it was funny to think five years ago? She'd have no idea what she'd be doing now or what she was. It's funny the way life goes sometimes.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Elise Leroy is here. Along with a small Fire Team from XCOM. They're not obviously from that organization, but they have brought along some of their own equipment. Laser pistols, only for emergencies, and one of them is loaded for bear with demolition charges, a massive mountain of a man, Argentinian with a close cropped hairstyle and a plasma burn scar on his right cheek.

    The group let themselves get fitted for the mission, checking the gear with an air of military precision, before getting into their launch vehicles. "Hammer Team is go for op." says the Commander, settling in. She feels naked without her rifle but she'll make due with the heavy weight of her Hellquake Hammer on her back, the Warhammer only just barely fitting into the launch pod. The G-Forces pin her back into her seat, and as the pod gives out, the squad emerge in unison, forming up in a loose formation, similar to shoaling fish as they swim to catch up with the Cyborg. <Mind the 'bots, Killzone, make sure you don't lose any charges, we might need all of them.>

    The troopers nod in response, breaking up a bit more to avoid becoming a large, obvious target.

Rory White (673) has posed:
Rory White isn't human. She hasn't come in human form. No sneaking suit for her! Her flexbot's currently configured in a gecko-like shape, and shimmers weirdly. Seems she's seen fit to coat the bot in something that has an effect very similar to the camouflage coating and baffles imaging technology. The Flexbot itself is capable of optical camouflage, of course.

    The lizard-like configuration has six legs and sports a number of small, swiveling turret barrels on its belly and back, several along the tail.

    This shape is immune to the cold. It can see in the dark. Climb walls vertically. Camouflage itself. And should it not be sufficient, she can always shapeshift into something else later!

    Rory's already suppressed her wi-fi transmission, but she has passive scanning of signals going. Perhaps with some time she'll be able to hack the base's systems...

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
"You do realize that I'm a black widow, not a water strider," Black Arachnia complains (under her breath and to nobody in particular) as she arranges herself inside the insertion pod. Tight space? Meh, she can retract her spider legs and shoulder shields while she's in robot mode. Water? Cold? She's not subject to drowning or hypothermia in the usual senses, but either one can impair her function. That's basically the only reason why she went to the trouble of pulling on one of the insulatd jumpsuits. She's not going to keep it any longer than she absolutely has to, though - most of her best skills are badly hampered by actual clothing.

Besides being a black widow, of course, Black Arachnia *is* a robot. That conveys some advantages which she not only plans to take full use of, but are in fact why she was asked about joining this mission in particular.

The pod itself seems pretty straightforward; actual submarines are more complicated, this thing doesn't make her worry about ballast or submerging or anything. It's just a matter of steering, and even that is grossly simplified - most of the course is pre-programmed, as far as she can tell. And then ... the pods stop.

Not just stop moving, *stop being intact*.

The Maximal suppresses a mild oath with the benefit of long practice, and just makes the best of it; the diving suit turned out to be a pretty good idea, even if it does pitifully little to offset Black Arachnia's negative buoyancy. If push came to shove she might be able to walk along the bottom, but it would be a lot less convenient than 'swimming' and using her thruster packs. It's not exactly a pleasant swim ... but she makes it.

The possibility of whoever planned this insertion being found dead later is a little bit higher than 'zero,' but she makes it into the base with the others.

Much like Rory, she's not actively transmitting anything (save for encrypted burst signals on the mission's comm frequency), but she *is* 'listening' to as much as she can, and starting to try and 'silently' break into any encryption that seems to be in play.

Devon-7 (1065) has posed:
    With a suitable codename picked and gear kitte out, Devon-7 is ready. He politely declined on the offered equipment, preferring to fit out his own gear from his personal supplies, and that means the space cowboy is in a bit of a different loadout than the norm. Gone is the tattered old duster coat and sand-colored armor, replaced with a sleek black suit, pressure sealed and environmentally sealed, with a moderate amount of armor plating. The helmet is a cross somewhere berween a ski-mask and gas-mask, and worn draped over it all is a black cloak, his Ghost already hiding herself in the fabric and folds.

    He spends good moment checking his weapons, loading a silenced sidearm, checking the sharpness of a wicked looking knife, before slinging an auto-rifle on his back and feeling good and content enough to climb into his pod. He probably has far more than that hidden away to boot. The pod launching hits with hard force, but it's not the same as escape velocity force. He feels almost at home in the process until the hatch pops, already steering his thruster pack to evade the range of the patrol drones.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    https://youtu.be/2yEuJITe-Sw

    The docks are just within reach, and Maaka reaches there first. There's a guard in white body armor, with a dull red glowing visor and everything. THe last thing he ever sees is a black figure reaching out for him, like a demon of the depths. His screaming and struggling is cut off with a progressive knife through the neck, and his heavy equipment seals his fate even without a slit throat.

    Climbing onto the docks proper, Maaka wastes no time in advancing, and climbs a small flight of stairs leading up to the rest of the docks. They're rather small, clearly meant for underground deliveries and the arrival of VIPs, with massive shipping containers lining the equally gigantic hall five rows high, six rows long each. Additional guards patrol the bay, toting assault rifles. "We need to move." Maaka says, before her suit cloaks and she disappears from sight, Kama in hand as she heads down the rows of containers.

    There are about six guards onsite currently, waiting for the elevator to come down for a cycled out shift. These men are on edge, ready to shoot at a moment's notice as they go on their route.

    You can either slip by the guards, or take them out stealthily. Your call! There is a freight elevator down the rows, where Maaka is headed for. Additional guards funnel out from the elevator, and it remains there for now. Better hurry before the patrol cycles out.

    GUARD STATUS: UNAWARE.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
They're already starting the trail of bodies? Black Arachnia eyes the guard's corpse, then simply sheds the diving suit she came in with, folding it up and tucking it into the subspace pocket she uses for storing things - like her mandible grapnel, when she's not using it. And speaking of that ...

"Beast mode."

There's a relatively quiet sound of machinery at work as the robot transforms into her spider shape, and she engages her electro-disruptor as a precaution before climbing up one of the nearby walls. She can only use that device for a limited time, so her priority at the moment is to get over next to the elevator - where the guards would have to be looking practically straight up to notice her - and *then* to disengage it so she can lie in wait without wasting operational invisibility time. Sure, they're waiting for the elevator, and she may not have much time before other, better-rested and more-alert guards are in the dock instead ... but it'll be easier than killing them, and there'll be fewer dead bodies for anybody to notice.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
it doesn't take long for Kotone to free herself from her pod and soon she's ripping then vanishing from view as her optic cameo kicks in. She's going to move to get past the guards she rather sneak in get the items and get out. <<I'm going to try to sneak past let's not alert the guards if we don't have to, right?>> With that Kotone is going to take the stelthy route and she's also armed to disable the guards if she needs to.

She seems as ready as she's going to be for thise though with everyone here she's got a feeling things will get loud sooner or later, for now though Kotone's going to try to be a ghost and keep her self aware of any wireless systems or jack in points she can use to help the team get ot the objective.

Genji Shimada (1007) has posed:
    That's a lot of guards, isn't it?

    Oh wait, no. No, the ones that just got off the elevator are all keeling over. Nevermind, it's not so bad now.

    ...wait, what?

    The one furthest back suddenly jerks, as if struck in the back of the neck. He slumps downward, only to suddenly stop, and then move back onto the elevator... no, he's being dragged. It's hard to make out by whom. He's very good at using the body to conceal himself, and it lasts only a second.

    The first one is quickly and quietly downed, then deposited in a corner of the elevator. The humanoid figure then darts forward, one hand flashing out - a small number of projectiles fly with unerring accuracy, each veering apart to slam into the back of one newly-arrived guard's neck, ensuring that they won't be getting back up /or/ calling for help. They receive much the same treatment - dragged back onto the elevator where they will be out of sight, at least for a moment.

    Then, with a swift and silent movement, the shinobi darts up onto the cargo containers, disappearing from sight. Moments later, a short-range transmission is sent.

    "Do not worry. We will have a few moments before the bodies are discovered, and the odds have been tipped in our favor."

                             "Genji is with you."                            

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Elise and Hammer Team follow quickly behind Maaka, drawing their provided weapons and activating the stealth systems on their suits. They fan out splitting into two pairs. Elise and Killzone follow after Maaka, while Werewolf and Desperado head down a couple of rows before juking between the container stacks, and into the back of a patrolling guard. A Gene-Mod enhanced rifle butt striking the back of his head before he can scream, knocking him out flat, before his sleeping form is propped up against a container. Hopefully they won't realize his actually been KO'd instead of fell asleep on the job. <Hammer 3 to Hammer Lead. KO'd a guard. Hopefully they won't realize until we're out.> says Desperado through subvocal comms. <Lead copies. Try to keep the count low, we're here for tech, not a body count.>

    And then Genji does his ninja thing. "Ooooh, boy." the Belgian woman mutters under her breath, before turning and sprinting to the elevator, letting Killzone shoulder charge one of the patrolling guards who came out of the stacks at just the wrong time, right into one the the containers, denting the metal with a guard-shaped imprint... which doesn't slow the Gene-Modded Heavy Trooper down in the slightest.

Corona Arclite has posed:
The first thing Corona does upon pulling herself up onto the deck is take off the breathing apparatus, tucking it away. Then pulls a good ol' stetson out of whatever spot she'd stuffed it in and plops it on her head, tugging at the brim to adjust it. No one should be surprised she doesn't go anywhere without one of those hats. Though it's not her usual one, as this version lacks the extra steampunk greebles and is a stealthy dark grey in color.

There, now she's ready for this proper like.

Then she unholsters a sidearm and flattens her small profile back to one of the stacks of crates. But before she can actually make use of it someone ninjas in. Literally. And takes out most of the guards at the elevator. "Welp, that's convenient." Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth she scurries for the elevator. Need to actually get inside before she starts pulling out her own tricks.

William Pauwel has posed:
ENEMY GUARDS KILLED

WILL DISAPPROVES: -10

    "...Ain't there a way we could sneak in without... You know, killin' everyone in our way?" Will mutters morosely into his built-in radio. The T-45 has clambered up onto dry land and took a moment to stuff all of its floatation devices- now thoroughly deflated- into convenient carrying sacks. He takes a moment to unholster his ever-present rootin' tootin' shootin' tool, the weapon briefly flashing to life as it's fished out of its water-proof pouch.

Well, nothing to be done for it. All they can really do is keep moving forward.

Devon-7 (1065) has posed:
    Maaka handles a guard. This is all well and good, as a clawed gauntlet grips onto the edge of the dock. Devon-7 pulls himself smoothly from the water, landing in a crouch, knife in hand, sidearm in the other already. And then with a flicker he's gone. There's just a soft crackle of stealth systems kicking into gear and then the Guardian is a phantom; little more than a walking silhouette, armor refracting light to bend off and away from him, rendering the Hunter almost invisible to the naked eye,

    He doesn't make a sound, climbing onto containers, higher and higher until he feels he has the best vantage point on the docks, putting the smaller weapons away for a long barrelled rifle he... Pauses. He only catches the very tail end of Genji's handiwork in 'clearing the way'. "Whelp. If it works."

    Devon-7 Approves: +10

Rory White (673) has posed:
Much as Kotone, Rory White is most interested in taking control of the base's resources. If she can hack into their systems she can lock soldiers out of their way, turn defenses against their makers, suppress alarms... gain map information... the possibilities are endless, really!

    She's certainly no fan of all the bodies the group is leaving behind. Those are people doing their job after all!

    She scuttles along the path that's been opened. Then the lizard lowers its body and panels on the belly open. Tiny mice-like robots, camouflaged against the surroundings, zip off in different directions to map and establish early warnings...

Reina Kinney has posed:
ENEMY GUARDS KILLED.

REINA DISAPPROVES: -10

"Was that really necessary?" Reina asks as she gets herself accustomed to being on terra firma again. As she removes her oxygen mask, she shakes her head. "We should try to avoid letting them know we're here. They see that guard dead, they're gonna be suspicious as hell." After that, she crouches down slightly and attempts to make her way towards the elevator, moving as deliberately as she can to avoid making any noise.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka seems to decloak just as the guards fall, finishing a switching soldier off with a shot to the head.

    It's time to move on. Maaka reaches the elevator, guiding the others aboard. Alarms blare as the lift begins to move...and boy is there a long way to go.

    They have plenty of time to prepare, and Maaka produces a holoprojector. They're going to the landing pad, leading toward the hangar that's a good mile above them in the mountains. Connecting it to the labs is a passageway that wraps around the mountain ridge, intended for transport on foot or by jeep.

    "We've got twenty minutes to get the package before they can lock the place down. There's no bones about it, we'll need to break into the facility directly, and to do that we need a diversion. Team 1 is with me, our mission's to take the package. Team 2 will split off from us once we hit the bridge connecting the storage facility to the research labs. You guys are gonna have the hard part ahead of you, dealing with onsite personnel along the ridge line." She says, as alarms blare, signaling they're almost at the top.

    "Good luck, people. Remember your teams, and let's get this done. If anybody is wounded and needs to bail out, I won't blame you. That's what the beacons on your belts are for, to get to the Spectre for medical attention. Otherwise, we're on our own. The Sinos can't risk implicating themselves with this, so they can't spare any reinforcements of their own."

https://youtu.be/r4mTEePbGZU?t=29

    TThe elevator slowly ascends to the heliport, and you'll be greeted by unforgiving cold. Be lucky you have those suits, or other means of enduring the cold, and the blizzard is strong enough that the naked eye will have no luck detecting you if you're careful, using cover via storage crate or conveniently sized walkways to go the low route.

    There is a VTOL gunship already landing. There, a mountain of a man in powered armor is disembarking from the transport, blond haired and blue eyed. Commander Rossovich is being briefed on the security breach no doubt, possibly the submarine wasn't as undetected as one would hope. Time's shortened now. Better move. The commander heads inside with his posses, elite soldiers in powered suits like his own, sleek but solid looking armor that resembles Maaka's own STALKER suit, with red stripes. Rossovich's has the classical Sickle and Hammer, which is all one needs to know about this guy.

    There's guards and spotlights everywhere, white-armored soldiers with assault rifles, hovering security drones, and powered suit troopers patrolling the area, with a few routes into the warehouse, whether going in by the front door, or through access hatches used by maintenance drones, large enough for an averagely sized humanoid to slip through easily on the ground and upper floors. There are also a number of storage sheds and structures one can use, if they're so inclined, to jump between in order to get to the upper levels and reach that hatch, there they can sneak in through the traversal vents without so much as alerting a soul.

    Maaka cloaks again, and disappears into the snowstorm.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Elise listens to the briefing. Looks like she and her group are going after the target itself... good, she brought the wrecking ball for that purpose, after all. She looks around at the others. "Alright, we need to make this fast... if you can handle it, lets go through the upper storey vent, here. My group all have Gene Mods for this purpose." Elise herself has a different set of Mods, but she has a micro grapnel to do the same job.

    Once the elevator opens, and the VTOL is gone, Elise's Hammer Team all cloak, and begin making their way around the outside, towards the storage sheds. Killzone, Werewolf and Desperado leap from the ground on top of the first shed, then leapfrog across to the vent hatch. Elise deploys the grapnel, and hauls herself up via the Alien Alloy cable and modified MEC servo drawing the wire back in. Killzone holds the vent open for the others to get in, then carefully closes it behind Team 2.

Genji Shimada (1007) has posed:
    On the elevator, up close, the group will get to see two things about Genji. One is... that he's wearing one of the suits Maaka has offered the group, right over his cyborg body. It seems to have been slightly modified to accomodate, but other than that he's 'dressed'. The other, is that all the lights on his suit are off.

    As soon as the elevator reaches the top, Genji lifts a hand, forming a single-hand sign in front of himself. A cloud of smoke slowly whirls its way up his body, enveloping him... and then drifts away on the wind.

    When next he's spotted by his allies, he's behind a storage shed. And then with a sudden, darting blur of movement, he's behind another. He's carefully keeping pace with the Commander, staying /just/ close enough that he can hear the discussion.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Or they could just kill every guard they run into and alert security just by the fact that so many guards are no longer responding to radio check-ins, thinks Black Arachnia as the guards are mercilessly slaughtered. And here *she* used to be one of the bad guys. (Although really, holding off on the trail of dead bodies is just pragmatism on her part ...)

Then she hears that Maaka knew all along that the check-ins are at ten-minute intervals.

*THAT* is where she almost facepalms.

She suppresses the urge, though - spider mode doesn't have as conveniently palmable a face as robot mode does, and she's not transforming just for the transient satisfaction. In fact, the Maximal rather pointedly remains in spider mode for the more detailed briefing about where their objective is, how long they have, and what they need to do. Thankfully, Black Arachnia is a pretty clear shoo-in for Team 1.

As long as the snow doesn't freeze her servos, she can just trundle along behind the crates and whatnot. The fact that so mcuh snow is blowing around means she doesn't need the electro-disruptor to be essentially invisible, which is just as well for multiple reasons. Stay out of the spotlights, avoid drawing attention, all fairly basic stealth skills. She does take telscopic note, in passing, of the powered suits; hopefully the diversionary force will be the only ones who need to worry about the soldiers thusly equipped.

Still, a system-freezing paralytic cybervenom might be a good thing to have handy, just in case.

Corona Arclite has posed:
Unlike some people, Corona just smirks at the ten minute interval thing. "Well now, wouldn't want this to be too easy after all." She's use to narrow crunch times, this isn't anything new. Once the briefing is over and the elevator comes to its stop...

Snowstorm? We can work with snowstorms, it's only slightly different from sandstorms, and Corona's already getting her goggles on by the time the elevator reachs its apex. Though as it comes to a stop her ears flick upright, twitching back and forth a few times. Even in the wind and snow the sound of aircraft engines doesn't escape the machinist's highly trained ears. "Sounds like we ain't the only one's payin' a visit," she mutters softly.

Guess it's time to get moving.

The wily fox girl disappears into the blowing snow easily enough, using it and the scattered structures for cover. Until she gets up along side one shed, peeks around the corner, and ducks back when she sees a couple of guards standing by the other side, huddled together as much for warmth as for doing their job. Thankfully facing the other way. Corona presses back against her side of the shed, and activates her matter manipulator to drop something lightly in the snow next to her.

A few moments later a lightly thumping sound drew the guards' attention, one whipping around towards the shed and raising his gun... Only to lower it a moment later at the small form in the snow. ".. Is that a rabbit?"
"Do they have rabbits up here?" The other guard replies as he also turns and squints. "That..."

The form moves closer to them, and becomes visible in the snow to be a rabbit. Made of metal. And with a pair of antlers.

"That's not a norma--" And a jolt of electricity from the antlers of the 'rabbit' arc out before they can lift their weapons again, and both men drop as if hit by a a couple of high powered tasers.

"Good job," Corona darts up once the smoking forms are down. She gives the men a quick pat down, but ignores their weapons and instead snatchs whatever sort of radios they might have. Now if the do wake up they won't be able to immeadiately call in.... If they wake up at all.

Corona darts off again, the mechanical jackalope hopping along after her.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    GENJI: Genji goes unnoticed as Rossovich and his men are brief by a posted officer. They seem to be discussing the current situation while walking toward the hangar, their pace brisk.

    "We're still working on identifying the source of the intrusion, but we're getting reports of patrols going dark down in the cavern port."

    "Do we know the cause? It can't be morale."

    "We're not sure, but there are reports of life signs going dead. We could be under attack."

    "Double patrols, my men and I will be heading for the armory. Have the facility locked down, goes double for R&D."

    "Yessir."

William Pauwel has posed:
    Will is quite glad that he's not being asked to go along with the team specifically built to shoot some dudes. 'Shoot a guy' is actually pretty low on Will's list of conflict resolution, right down there next to 'explode everything.' "Ten minutes is a bit tight but it ain't the worst kind of time limit in the world." At least if they take too long it's just mission failure and not EVERYONE DIES. That would be just plain awful.

    The T-45 doesn't really blend in too well with the driving snow, being a hulking mass of steel, metamaterial and awesomeness. It does, however, come with a set of hand-made treads. A set of powerful microservos humm quietly as the armor speeds off towards the target.

    Of course, just because they're not going to charge head-first into a bunch of armed men doesn't mean that they're not going to run into any hostiles. Will catches sight of some of them. They're in armor much like his own, but... Probably a little less roughshod. Still, that gives him an idea.

He glances to his sidearm. The blue light briefly flickers, then shifts. The air around the Solano seems to ripple gently, now. Maybe this'll be a good opportunity to test out his new toy?

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
She knows how the team is breaking down on this operation she takes a deep breath, more out of force of habit, while she's a cyborg? She's not a cold weather model so there may be issues with her freezing ups and she'll keep an eye on her HUD's tempature indicators far more closely than she normally does. She keeps with the group and knows they have only a short amount of time to get the goods and get the hell out of here. She knows whom she's sticking with and she's going to keep with Alexis Maaka and the rest of the team that will be going with her.

In the cold unforgiving weather? Kotone is looking for any wireless signals still if she can with Rory subvert parts of the local network here they could do a lot to make their own lives easier, right? It's also not unlost on

<<Rory? Maaka? BA? Any luck on finding any networks or terminals we might be able to get into??>>

Devon-7 (1065) has posed:
    Into the elevator, and with another soft crackle, Devon is there, crouched, elbows on his knees, cloak and armor good and dry. The Hunter listens to the plan. The timeframe. And the basic MO for the op. He says nothing, and aside from the lackadaisical seeming posture, this is perhaps the most professional anyone has ever seen him. He doesn't even flinch when the elevator alarms go off. No he's just waiting for those doors to open.

    As soon as they do, he's a phantom again, cloaked and pointedl avoiding spotlights and slinking past soldiers.

    This is when Genji, shadowing Rossovich, will realize he has a shadow. Just as fast, though with a lot less ninja-finesse to his motions, and just as silent and stealthy. Devon keeps pace completely wordlessly, showing that cowboys can keep up. The only reason anyone would be aware of him, at this point, would be if he wants them to; excepting in Genji's case, who would probably have picked up on him, on his own, anyway.

Reina Kinney has posed:
As the elevator begins to rise, Reina ditches the remainder of her swimming equipment, giving her better mobility on her feet again, and is finally able to untie her hair from the bun she was forced to tie it into, then retie it into its usual ponytail. Despite seeming preoccupied with her hair, she is listening and paying attention to what is being said.

"So we're the ones dealing with the enemy forces." Reina says as she nods, acknowledging what is being said. "Understood. We're gonna do this!"

Rory White (673) has posed:
Rory can offer little to this endeavor that others don't have covered unless she can play to her strengths! Her Lidar has picked up plenty of things along with passive radio sniffing.

    The lizard opens its 'maw' wide, revealing several more piles of gadgetry. With a tiny *POOF* of air pressure, a graspping hook's fired up at an airborne drone with full intent of snagging the thing and reeling it into her grasp, to the ground - right into a spray of radio-baffling foam to prevent it from calling for help or seeing ANYTHING going on!

    She's going to quickly get to work after hiding behind some walls, using fractal digits to pry into it and try to perform a COMPLETE dump of its electronic memory. Whether this be its flash memory or equivalent or the equivalent to running memory (RAM) matters little. The latter is better, since it's unlikely to be encrypted and her AIs will have a FIELD day with that scenario...

Genji Shimada (1007) has posed:
    Well. They were bound to be found out eventually, this just moves the timetable up. Privately, Genji calls it a necessary tradeoff; those men down there are no longer a danger. They'll just have to find other ways to... oh. Hello, Devon.

    Genji actually gives him a quick-two-fingered salute.

    But then he's all business again, darting between obstructions until he can get past a security drone and climb up onto the second level. He's heading into the hangar on the second floor.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    TEAM 1: Maaka takes the high road, as she proceeds to Spider-Woman her way up the wall of a storage shed. She leaps across the gaps deftly, using brief boosts to carry her across before she reaches the outside of the Hangar. An unfortunate guard on overwatch will receive a bullet to the brain, as Maaka catches his body and sets it down.

    She'll help with opening the vents for everyone to slip in.

    For those more technically oriented, this place is a goldmine for mischief making. There are shutters that are electronically opened and closed one can hack, as well as data terminals to rob blind for juicy information, and hovering drones buzzing overhead that can be either taken over, or hacked entirely, as well as security cameras that may need to be avoided.

    As those entering the hangar file in, whether by doorways or vents, they will find themselves in a much warmer interior. The guards indoors are wearing OD green combat uniforms instead of the stark white worn by the guards outside. THere are APCs and jeeps in the hangar, currently being worked on by drones and technicians at the moment.

    Maaka takes the vents, crawling slowly through the cramped corridors before she worms her way inside. With her thermoptic cloak, she should be able to avoid the odd glance or two as she finds a high position, trying to call out patrol routes.

    She spies guards on the upper walkways, currently looking down as they look for any intrusion. Honestly it may be much smarter to hit the high road, if one is able.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Proper bandwidth at last. Black Arachnia is starting to poke at the security on the network even before she reaches the building proper; she knows she's not the only hacker in the group, so dividing up their tasks is probably in order - just for efficiency's sake. The data they're looking for is probably going to be under better protection than the more surveillance- and access-oriented stuff, so the spidery Maximal claims that task for herself. She's not above swapping tasks around if the need presents itself - and she's certainly willing to share her 'entry point' with the other hackers in the group, if they need it ... and if that's ENOUGH bandwidth for all of them to do their respective things.

In the meantime, if the vents are big enough for a very large robot spider to crawl through them, Black Arachnia will use it. If, as she suspects, they aren't quite that big, then she'll have to usurp control of a door long enough to get inside. It'll be a good test of just how good the security on the network is, and how well she can convince it that she's an authorized superuser. What she *can't* hack is human eyesight; she has her electro-disruptor for that, and for stymieing cameras that aren't disabled in time.

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona Arclite picks Hopalong up under and arm while Maaka is getting a vent open, then follows her up inside. Now we're getting more into the sort of environment the fox is familiar with. Not to mention the somewhat warmer temperature is a nice change of pace. Won't have to worry about Hopalong's furnance freezing over from prolonged exposure.

At first she follows Maaka, but then as the team leader finds herself a spotting position she crawls off into a different ventway. Until she can find a grating looking down into the motorpool before. Gently she pries it open, watching one of the technicians working below. She motions to Hopalong to say put for a moment, then shimmies herself down through the grate.

Halfway into the engine block of a jeep the technician doesn't hear the light foxwoman drop to the ground behind him. Or notice her until Corona reachs over to tap his shoulder lightly. He starts to ask "What?" as he pulls partway back out to look, but only gets to making a gasp as he sees a gloved hand grab for the hood of the jeep, and slam it down on top of him. Between the metal hood and the engine block, his head doesn't stand a chance.

Corona tugs him back out and shoves the body under said jeep so it won't be quickly found. Then grabs the hood, motions to Hopalong in the vent, and slaps the hood down to close it and make just enough of a noise that would be normal in the hanger to cover the mechalope hitting the ground.

Corona hunches down, pulling a sidearm out in each hand and starts sneaking along between the vehicles, using her smaller size to her advantage and keep her profile down.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
At this point Kotone does find what she can get into she's going to try to get into the security drones, wait Rory seems to be on that she'll leave her long time friend to handle that with the drones. Ktoones is going into the shutters to try and get them under control to use them when needed to cut off security teams from getting them, or helping the team to get past any that might have been dropped. That's Kotone's plan anyhow.

<<I'm going after the shutters. How much time do we have left?>>

he'll be in the vents soon too and she's getting pretty tense she knows they have to be careful or things could get very bad. She also hopes the ducts will hold out against her weight.

Heinkel Wolfe (Dropped) has posed:
  Not far from the other group, there is another lone operative heading towards Rossovich's position. The local Iscariot operative has been fast, observant, and generally very good at avoiding notice from the patrols. Best of all, she hasn't had to leave any messes yet.

  Having taken the callsign Lammergeier for the mission, the Vatican Section XIII assassin has been stealthily approaching Rossovich from the other side of the facility, having infiltrated separately.

  Right now she's making her way down a corridor, one silver-plated pistol drawn. Thus far she hasn't had to use it, yet, but that could change.

William Pauwel has posed:
    T-45s do not fit inside vents. They're a lot too bulky to squeeze through a space like that. "Ain't really got too many options here," Will grouses as he makes his way to the front door, "Gonna have to go in the hard way." Apparently the 'hard way' involves going up to a shutter and trying to force it open. Of course, as he's a gunslinger in a huge suit of armor, he's not exactly able to be... subtle about the way he tears a keypad straight out of a wall.

    "Okay," Will mutters, squinting at the electronics inside. Everything's about the same in the end, right? You send a signal to the right place, and the machine does what you want it to do. "So if I stick this wire here, uh..." Will frowns. "Well. I THINK this'll open things. Open things, or burn the power out. One of the two!"

    He takes the handful of leads. Handful here meaning 'everything that looks like it could possibly go to the door open-y bit.' He takes all of that, and he takes his pistol, which is currently crackling with what anyone with the right sensors could tell is a pretty high-energy electromagnetic field.

And then he pulls the trigger, and there's a big ol ZZZOLT that gets blasted right into the thing's electronics. And whatever they might be attached to.

Will it open the door?

Will it accidentally short out the entire security system?

WHO KNOWS, WILL IS FLYING BY THE SEAT OF HIS PANTS. Go go gadget JUNKYARD ELECTRICIANS.

Devon-7 (1065) has posed:
    Howdy, Genji.

    Devon reaches up to tip his hat. But then he's back to being serious, as well, silently sliding into the hangar after Rossovich and his ninja-tail. Still cloaked as he ues, the Hunter eyes the interior guards... And then. Something sputters.

    "Whuh?"

    "Uh oh, y'pushed the cloaking too hard again, Devon!" Oakley hisses in his ear.

    "Aw chucklefucks." He grunts to himself, cloaking flickering as he quickly looks for a means to conceal himself. And dives under the first thing he finds without a sound.

    It's a box.

    A cardboard box.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Hammer Team creeps through the vent network, using their augmented vision to see in the darkness. They move through the vents to the main warehouse area, scouting the area before committing to anything overt. They group has been spotted, so far as they're not entirely stealthed anymore.

    Elise radios in. <Where is our primary target?> before signalling for her team to move on. Might have to acquire some kind of vehicle.

Reina Kinney has posed:
Meanwhile, Reina finds the vent network to be no problem for her. She is used to things like this, not just from training as a GUARDIANS member, but also from her time as a mercenary. Don't ask how she knows this. But she is wondering if this is really worth going through all the trouble to catch their target or not.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Alarms blare as William, in lieu of trying to squeeze through a vent, shoots a junction box with Solano. The junction box sparks brightly, and the entire facility's power grid practically skips a beat. There's a pregnant pause as smoke emerges from the electronics, before the door slowly lurches open, alarms weakly blaring a distorted howl.

    Guards jump from their routine as alarms are set off, and drones flutter about. Rory may be able to hack them easily if it means slowing down their response, but the human guards aren't so easily misdirected. THey have eyes, and guns too. "What the hell was that?" "Spread out and search the hangar, we got guests, folks, KILL 'EM!"

    Maaka blanches from her little perch, and she sighs. "Fuck me...guess we better speed this up." She runs for the balcony and leaps over, throwing grenades into the midst of the fray. "Firefox, back off!" She calls out, before she heads for the distant doorway, marked as leading towards the R&D section of the complex.

    Humanoid drones and cyborg guards arrive toting machine guns and the like, opening fire upon the intruders, and Maaka returns fire.

    MEANWHILE, Heinkel is unnoticed so far, the excitement drawing everybody's attention. Same goes for Genji and Devon as all three trail the commander. They may actually be able to use this to kill a few patrols along the way, while they hunt for Rossovich and his bros.

Genji Shimada (1007) has posed:
    Genji is able to quickly and smoothly get through the vents, and where the guards are looking down, he goes /up/, as best he's able. It's a good, silent path to take... well, until the alarms blare.

    There goes the subtle approach. Things are going to move quickly, so letting the target escape is a no-go. That's fine, though. There's a reason Shimada ninja train so hard in flat-out combat skills.

    A trio of shuriken embed themselves in the ground in front of Rossovich. They're deliberately thrown to get attention. To have him look for the direction they came from. But Genji is already moving. He leaps out and away, soaring over the open space of the hangar and then suddenly /darting/ forward - such that, while Rossovich is looking towards where he /was/, the shinobi will be dropping down behind the colossal Russian. It should put him in a perfect position to draw his shortblade and strike at some of that exposed skin. It's very /vital/ exposed skin, after all.

    On the way down, all the lights on Genji's body light up as one.

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    And the alarm starts sounding. "Looks like we've been made. Hammer Team, go loud." she says. Killzone grins a bit, pulls his weapon from his back, and primes a demolition charge like a hand grenade, before booting open the vent with a heavy kick. "Loud it is, Commander." he says, then hoicks the charge into the midst of the power armoured guards, before dropping down to ground level and taking cover behind some crates.
        Desperado and Werewolf grin as well, following after the larger Heavy with a little more finesse, beginning to weave through the guard's line, shooting at point blank, or going in for kill strikes with Alien Alloy blades.

    Elise herself unhitches her Hammer, and waits. She's got one, maybe two swings , and if she misses, the entire building might start coming down, best to make it count.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
How is it, Black Arachnia wonders in a brief moment of overwhelmingly intense exasperation, that she *ALWAYS* winds up with at least one ally who doesn't understand that the whole point of sneaking into a place is *not to be detected*? That the higher a place's security is, the MORE likely it is that something like a 'random' catastrophic failure is going to, at the very least, prompt somebody to go and check out what failed, and in more paranoid settings, is likely to set off alarms whether localized or general just to be on the safe side?

She'll berate the clumsy morons later, assuming everyone survives to either issue or sit through the lecture in question. Survival is the important part right now - well, survival and accomplishing the slagging mission. She does her best to minimize the noise she's making on her way through the vents (metal on metal is bad for stealth) and continues deeper into the building, switching the electro-disruptor back on to mask her presence from any MORE of those sensors. If the whole network can get taken down -

Well, it's not like they can be any LESS sneaky at this point, can they?

Devon-7 (1065) has posed:
    Well that could have gone better. But to Devon's credit, at least he's not the one that set the alarms off. In the confusion and chaos, people might be very hard pressed to notice the box that sprouts legs and starts waddling around inside the hangar, keeping to the walls and hiding behind other boxes.

    "Left left, go left-- no Devon your other left!" Oakley hisses, the Ghost's cycloptic eye peeking through the slat in the box and trying to guid him.

    "Durn it Oakley I /can't tell where 'm goin' if yer in the way!/"

    There is a moment of bickering as the box thumps into a wall. It's short-lived though before the BOX is on the move again. The wrong way.

    See as Genji eschews subtlety and makes to get attention with shuriken and flashy lighting, before moving in the kill, the box toddles right up... And bumps right into the leg of ont of Rossovich's guard.

    "Uh oh."

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona Arclite's ears slick back as the alarms go off. So much for that. She ducks down at Maaka's warning, if only because it keeps more obstacles between her and the incoming surge of forces, with Hopalong close behind her. Though at the moment he's just vanguard in case anyone gets too close.

"Welp, seein' as stealth is pretty much off the table at this point." An ear twitchs again, homing in on the direction some of the reinforcements are coming from. She reachs back and pulls her preferred weapon out of it's sling, giving it a cock and flipping it into her hands as the power core crackles to life. "Time fer some fireworks!"

Corona backs up a few steps and .. aims off to the side of where the guards are arriving actually. Forgesweeper cracks loudly as it spews out a hissing green-blue ball of plasma to slam into the side of one of the parked jeeps. The resulting explosion of metal, glass, smoke and other bits of vehicle reduced to shrapnel should erupt right into the faces of the reinforcements.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Genji Shimada may be a master assassin and spy, however he does have one mistake. He expected way too easy a kill from Commander Nikolai Rossovich. Alerted by the box, the Russian stops just short of getting shurkien in his feet, and he about faces just in time to see the cyborg ninja coming for him.

    Genji's tanto slashes at the Russian's neck, drawing blood and a grunt of pain...but not much else. The Russian just laughs, before he grabs Genji by the shoulders and slams him against the ground in a chokeslam. "That...that tickled. Did you really expect that to work, boy?" He chuckles, grinning way too wide considering he has a wounded neck. An inch deeper and his jugular would be gushing right now.

    The Russian commando strikes Genji with the force of a rushing rhino, before he grabs the ninja by the throat. "Who else is with you? Speak now and I'll make your death quick, boy. I suggest you take my offer while you can still speak!" He's woefully unaware of the others, but his men are currently scouring the corridor as Rossovich and Genji 'chat'. The guard that the box nudges against looks down in confusion, crouching as he nudges the box up. "What the fuck is this...who just leaves boxes around a place like this?"

    "Hell if I know, do we use cardboard?"

    Rossovich sighs. "Idiots." He looks back to Genji, shaking his head, "Ignore that. Now tell me what I want to know, cyka."

    MEANWHILE, back at the hangar bay, things escalate further. Robots and soldiers alike open fire upon the intruders, and a mechanical lurching signals the arrival of a power loader.

    Wait, no. THat's a powered suit alright, but it's sporting a massive mini gun in hand. "WHO'S FIRST? WHO WANTS SOME?!" The heavily armed and armored trooper opens fire with 25mm rounds, aiming straight for Maaka first as she runs like hell for the doorway, returning fire in order to draw his attention.

    [Whipserwire, the big guy. Kill him.] SHe orders into the radio, marking him on the tactical net.

    Desperado, Werewolf, and Killzone will have plenty to do as well, as soldiers open fire on them and their boss. Combat droids rush them with rapid fire, one of them charging Killzone like a linebacker as it attempts to shoulder-check the augmented trooper, another rushing Elise with similar goals.

Heinkel Wolfe (Dropped) has posed:
  Heinkel Wolfe skids around the corner, and her guns are up and pointed at the platoon of Rossovich's guards as she does.

  "Guten tag~."

  The Iscariot sniper manages to get that much out, along with a sweet smile, before she raises each pistol just slightly. Both heavy-caliber pistols proceed to roar as she opens fire with both, aiming to rake both over the guards in front of her.

  Bracing herself right in the middle of the hall, Heinkel is pretty sure this is going to get their attention. Just to be sure, she draws in a deep breath, and /bellows/, over her pistols' gunfire.

  "ACH! /ROSSOVICH/! OFER HERE, YOU SPINELESS SON OF A PIG!"

William Pauwel has posed:
WELP.

This is why you probably shouldn't try to open a door with a gun. Someone will inevitably take issue with it and try to push in all your stuff.

    The power-armored cowboy's lips draw into a tight grimace as the doors slooowly start to slide open. That's not exactly fast enough. There are people showing up. People, not robots. There are definitely robots too, but he still isn't particularly interested at shooting anyone with actual lives to lose. "Okay, uh. Need to kind of... hurry..." He murmurs, moving to grab hold of the great big doors and leveraging the T-45's augmented strength against the steel. Eventually, he manages to squeeze his way in, and then...

Uh.

Well. This is where they're going, right? But there are people in the way! That's NOT GOOD. Especially not when Maaka decides to straight up hurl grenades into the lot of them. "Durandal, I'm reaaaaallly not comfortable with all the dead people we're makin' here," Will says uneasily into the comms. He tightens his shoulders and starts rolling forward. The Solano fires, sending nearly invisible, rippling waves of electromagnetic madness towards the things that definitely do not twig as 'alive.' "Headin' to the target now! Let's just get what we need and get out 'fore anything else goes wrong!"

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Killzone opens fire on the rushing droid, bracing for the impact, then ducking under the robot's center of mass. His augmented muscles strain under the impact and stress, but he pushes back, and flips the droid over before unloading a full magazine into the droids center mass, looking to core out something important. Werewolf and Desperado continue to dance, though Werewolf takes a few bullets for the trouble, grunting in pain and backing out of the fight to apply some emergency first aid.

    Elise looks at the rushing droid, and with an almost elegant twirl, aims to smash her Daemonic Warhammer into it as it gets close. The impact would be much like getting smacked into by a Mack Truck travelling at highway speeds... and that power suit has to go. "I have a can opener." she says over radio, before charging the minigun toting suit. Hopefully it's distracted enough that she can slam her Hammer into it's back, but if not, well... she can really bring the house down if needs be.

Genji Shimada (1007) has posed:
    WHAM. THUD. "Ugh-!" Genji was expecting a tough opponent, but Rossovich surprises him with just how sudden and ferocious an attack he can muster. When he's finally lifted up by the neck, he manages to reply in a shockingly calm voice, free of any real strangulation - probably thanks to his cybernetic neck. "There is no one else here. Even I'm not here. You're just imagining things."

    A trio of shuriken quietly deploy to Genji's hand.

    In the moment that Heinkel yells and starts shooting, Genji snaps his hand up to try and drive all three shuriken into Rossovich's neck in a single vicious punch. Whether that works or not, though, he swings both his legs up, plants them in the big man's chest and heaves, pushing himself out of that grip in a fast backflip that gives him just a bit of distance. He pauses for a moment, waiting to see if it worked or if someone else gets the kill...

    ...but just in case, reaches around behind himself, resting a hand on the grip of his larger sword.

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona switchs weapons, opting for her repeater it's faster rate of fire than the plasma-shotgun's large but slow blasts. After alternating a few times between standing up to fire, then ducking down as return fire punchs more and more holes in the jeep she's using for cover, Corona decides it's time to put her alternative tactic into motion. As she ducks down she looks to Hopalong, gesturing a few instructions to the automatron instead of speaking up.

Hopalong gets the message though, getting down on all four of his limbs and disappearing under the jeep. Corona pops up again just long enough to fire off another shot and keep attention on them.

She's counting on the men and drones being too focused on the people to notice the smaller mechanimal creeping under the vehicles.

Not notice the mecha jackalope until he pokes his head out right by the guard position. Which is all the moment of surprise he needs to open his mouth and blast out a plume of scorching hot flames and scalding steam from his internal furnance right into their ranks!

Will it do much damage to the augmented soldiers? Maybe not, even with the extreme temperature. But it's suddenly RIGHT THERE and hopefully enough of a surprise distraction to give the others a chance to drill in some good shots.

Corona certainly tries to capitalize on it, popping up and snapping off several armor-piercing shots at the security drones with her riveting repeater.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Oh look, a new priority objective. Not that Black Arachnia minds taking the time to deal with the big, noisy, obnoxious oaf with the too-big gun, too many bullets, and too loud a mouth. Never mind that some others are probably inclined to take him down themselves ...

She's going to *enjoy* this.

She's already got her hooks into the local network; with Maaka highlighting the target's location, it's easy enough for Black Arachnia to focus in on him, his implants, and his powered armor. And she starts hacking, physically still traversing the ducts while she splits off some of her attention to the other task.

First order of business: infiltrate his armor's systems, without drawing attention to the fact that she's doing so. Sure, she COULD probably lock the powered armor down easily enough, but where's the fun in that? It's more interesting to start messing with his targeting, and the armor's visual relays - make him think he's shooting the intruders when, in fact, he's helping gun down the other security forces.

Once a sufficient quantity of the (comparative) mooks are out of commission, she starts screwing with his weapons systems. Jamming the ammunition feed sounds good. Force-ejecting it sounds even better. And shutting off the big guy's cameras sounds better still, making sure he can't just pick it up and stuff it back into the minigun's loading port. But just for good measure ... she's going to try to freeze his servos as well - oh, and his comms. No point in letting him call for help.

And on that note, punting his implants into 'autistic' mode sounds good - don't actually disable them entirely, but freeze all input and output beyond the limits of his own body. Trap him, helpless, inside his own mind, and leave that impressively over-armed suit of powered armor as the most expensive and intimidating paperweight in this part of the Multiverse.

For now, anyway. Maaka did say 'kill him' but if somebody else delivers the coup de grace ahead of her, no big loss.

Devon-7 (1065) has posed:
    This is bad. The alarms, all the guards, all the GUNS.

    When that guard lifts the box up, Oakley looks up from where she was hiding at the bottom of it. The little blocky construct, no bigger than a baseball, tilts up to stare at him with her glowing eye. Her whole... Baseball-sized self is quivering.

    !

    "Um. Howdy?"

    And she is the ONLY thing inside the box.

    This is because as Genji faces Rossovich, and Heinkel swings in around the corner, guns blazing at the men, there is motion from up above. In the hangar rafters, something flickers. And then drops.

    Devon's cloaking cancels out again; this time on purpose as he freefalls down he holds his hand up. But he's not reaching to catch back on the ceiling and arrest his fall. In his clawed gauntlet a light forms. A blazing hot orange-gold light as bright as the sun itself-- no- blazing as though it WAS the sun. Or was made out of it.

    Devon draws upon the Light within his body, calling upon the Solar aspect blazing within himself as a gunslinger, Light spreading from his fingers and coaslescing into a new form, smithing a gun of golden sunlight within a mere feaction of a second.

    A gun that he he turns down upon the guards below, two explosive shots hailed down to join Heinkel's fussilade, and then he lands, a third intended to catch Rossivich off guard and open him up for Genji a bit better.

    "Oakley always says I was too proud t' ask for directions."

    "DARN RIGHT YOU ARE!"

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Things are serious tonight she'd make some jokes normally but she knows they need to speed it up? Then the fight gets going. Kotone is now moving in to go after the drones as she breaks into teh fight maybe she could attempt some combat hacking on the enemy cyborgs? Bad idea she's not a Wizard Class Hacker. She's become good but she's not /that/ good. She now bursting out of the vents along side everyone else she's still cloaked though. She'd rather have nabbed the loot and got out but that doesn't seem to be in the plans anymore. She also did wonder /what/ is her life coming to?

She hears the target painted and Kotone drops in, to it making for them she does nopt like it, yet she moves opening fire as she closes in this had better be worth it.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    ROSSOVICH: The Russian cries out in pain as he feels shuriken embed themselves into his neck. "ACH! BLYAT! FUCK, YOU FUCKING BRAT!" He stumbles back a few paces as Genji gets himself some space with a heaving kick and a sick backflip. He draws his sidearm with one hand while the other tries to pull the shuriken out of his neck, blood covering his armor and the floor while the .50 caliber pistol in his free hand fires repeatedly. It's a beefy sidearm, one you do not want to get hit by.

    Wolfe's barrage of pistol fire gets his and his men's attention, and the Russian barks out an order. "Kill the bitch and her friends!" THey follow it, as they open fire. A few of them seem intent on suppressing Genji and Heinkel while their friend, toting an automatic shotgun, rushes them, sprinting swiftly before he fires a couple of shots at the werewolf and ninja.

    Of course, they didn't count on Devon to arrive. If Oakley had put the soldiers on edge, then Devon would've justified those feelings had Genji and Heinkel not done so already. "What the fuck is-ARGGH!" Rossovich catches a round in the leg, while two of his subordinates are blown apart by shots from the GOlden Gun. Rossovich drops to a knee, giving up on removing the throwing stars, and reloads his pistol before he fires at the Exo Hunter. "You shit, you bitch, you and your bitch, the ninja, AND YOUR FUCKING FAIRY are /ALL/ dead, you hear me? DEAD!"

    Yeah, he isn't one to accept any kind of defeat. He'll be damned if he doesn't go out fighting.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    HANGAR: Maaka runs like hell as she tries to evade the Big Boy's barrage of firepower. "That's it, fatass!" She calls out, tossing an EMP at the feet of Big Boy's underlings. They're caught flat-footed, staggering as their numbers are cut down by XCOM's finest, as well as Corona's firepower as well.

    Speaking of firepower, Hoppalong sneakily gets himself into position before lighting a handful of soldiers on fire. They are not taking this well, as they frantically fire upon the robotic Jackalope. "AAAAGH! AAAAAGH! FUCK, AAAAAGH!" One soldier throws himself on the ground, rolling to smother the flames while another fumbles for fire retardant, only for Corona and Elise's men to cut them down by gunfire.

    Meanwhile, Killzone puts the droid charging him down like a sick cow, the machine crushed like it was hit by an industrial press. Elise has similar results, her hammer smashing the robot. While Big Boy is busy spraying fire at Maaka, he's wide open for the XCOM Commander to strike, and she takes that chance.

    Her hammer strikes Big Boy in the side, leading the massive cyborg to stumble forwards, his mini gun dropping to the floor while he tries to figure out what hit him, fists flailing.

    Then he sees Elise, and a wicked, disgusting smile is on his face. "Oh. OH, it's /fucking on/, bitch." He laughs, before he charges Elise, intending to drive her to the ground before he brings his fist to her face.

    That's when Blackarachnia's handiwork kicks in. He was too caught up in the midst of combat to notice his armor, and body, were being hacked. While he isn't immobile entirely, he's still very much slowed down. Servos audibly seize up, and he has to put more effort into just moving. "Wh-what...what happ-happened..what...what..."

    Going from grossly overconfident to terrified within moments, Big Boy slumps to his side, fear all over his face as he tries to regain control of his body. Sadly, it's not happening.

Genji Shimada (1007) has posed:
    "I know it may be difficult to believe with my boyish good looks," Genji replies, his voice calm. "But I'm well past thirty. I'm practically a geezer." The calm in his voice becomes even more noteworthy when his shortblade begins dancing in front of his body. Bullets ping off the blade again and again, the deflections almost casual. "Would you like me to tell you my secret for staying so healthy and youthful?" Ping. Ping ping. Ping- and that should be the last bullet.

    Without skipping a beat, Genji acts.

                           "THE DRAGON BECOMES ME!"                          

    The blazing emerald Dragon of Shimada erupts to life as Genji draws the Dragonblade, its edge shining brightly. In the next heartbeat, the shinobi becomes a blur of green light, charging forward with the weapon. He takes a single, vicious slash as he passes Rossovich - and then stops, turns, and unloads several more from the other side.

Corona Arclite has posed:
Once the return fire starts to thin out from the men going down Corona climbs on top of what remains of the jeep she was hiding under. Most of the men and drones are down, and the power loader as been stalled out by the looks of it, though it's not entirely down yet. She gave a vage wave to motion Hopalong to come back to her, then hopped down from the jeep. The punktech bot has quite a few dings from the wild shots but nothing too severely damaging.

Corona hops over some dead guards and grabs the mini-gun Big Boy dropped. She has to grab it with both hands and put a foot on the butt end to even lift it a bit off the floor, but it's enough leverage to get it angled up. So Hopalong can scoot underneath and use his horns to brace it. With the jackalope doing most of the supporting like a living bipod, Corona can at least grip the big fucking gun decently enough to aim it.

Right at it's former owner.

"Hey, punk! Ya dropped somethin'!" With a mischeviously wicked little grin Corona pulls the trigger, using the oversized weapon like a stationary weapon placement with her bot's help to try and gun Big Boy down with his own firepower!

Elise Leroy (62) has posed:
    Elise just smiles serenely. It's a very unpleasant thing to see as ones body completely locks up, leaving you helpless before that smiling visage. "You are correct." she says, her voice eerily calm, as she unhooks her thigh holster, draws the laser pistol from it, the device unfolding and beginning it's power up sequence, the laser chamber beginning to glow a baleful red as it accumulates energy. "It /is/ on." She levels the lens at Big Boy's head, and fires a continuous beam until he stops struggling. She turns, racks the heatsink to pop the spent one out, grabs that out of the air with a sizzle in her gloved hand, and holsters the weapon again. "Hammer Team, sound off." she radios, then tchs.

    Werewolf hisses through his teeth, as his leg just refuses to move, leaving him stuck behind a crate with his SMG sweeping and firing at any remaining guards that venture into his line of fire.

    Killzone and Desperado sweep and clear the area, then move to assist their downed comrade.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
While Kotone was unsettled about the mission in some aspects? She was sent after the prototype that XCOM needed and that's what she was going to get she kne3w William, and Rory. They should be able to get it Kotone stops shooting, recloaks and now is making for a door in the hanger, and she'll pop it without much toruble given the chaos and she's making for the bridge.

<<William? Rory we should keep moving and get the objective before something else goes wrong!>>

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona Arclite lets go of the trigger again a moment later, before the gun actually starts firing. The things need time to spin up, and that's just long enough to give a scare before Elise moves in for teh kill. "Gotcha!"

Yeah, she'll entirely play it off like it was meant to be a scare, and not actually cause a load of friendly fire. Oopsie. Got a little too eager there.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    HANGAR:

    The soldiers are mopped up, in surprisingly short order. Maaka reloads her pistol as she approaches the prone Big Boy, her gun aimed at the downed cyborg's head. Sadly she doesn't get the chance to finish him, but Elise deserves that honor far more than she does.

    She just watches as Elise puts the rotund cyborg out of his misery, laser shots reducing his head to a chunky mess, his body twitching in a macabre shimmy, before he finally goes limp.

    "I think we're good to go, we'd better head for the labs." She says, motioning for Corona, Elise, and the troopers to form up.

    They'll catch up with Kotone, Will, and Rory, at the bridge, where a squad of Izunagi troops remain posted. Needless to say, there's still work to be done, and Maaka leads the charge as she draws her PDW. The 6mm weapon fires in bursts from her off hand, while her Kama fires more accurately, armor piercing rounds punching through armored suits as the cyborg makes a slide, shooting point blank.

    Hopefully she isn't alone on this one.

Heinkel Wolfe (Dropped) has posed:
  In the midst of the storm of gunfire, Heinkel Wolfe bares her teeth against the deafening noise, keeping her eyes focused on her targets through a morass of drifting smoke. It's not difficult to follow them, given how closely grouped they're staying. What's more difficult is to keep an eye on Rossovich himself, just in case he decides he's going to change aggro and go after her.

  "'Bitch?' Ach, you blind jackass! I'm a priest! Haf you ever heard of a voman being a priest!? I mean, really!"

  Yeah, she's totally trolling them, even though they probably don't know about Catholicism in the least. Her facial structure really does look like it could go either way.

  Heinkel pauses in her salvo long enough to reload, which she seems to have distilled down to an art and a science, despite handling two pistols. She's already moving forward before her ejected clips can even hit the ground.

  Of note to the guards still alive, she's moving forward /directly against their gunfire/. Some of it lands wide, missing her harmlessly. Several rounds slam into her, though, and she bares her teeth in a snarl -- the sound that bubbles up from her throat is deep and reverberating; decidedly inhuman, and very much in bad temper.

  One of her pistols drops, sent spinning over the smooth floor; her arm hangs at an awkward angle where the round impacts her shoulder. Another slices past her face, drawing a line of blood; a third tears past her throat without hitting it, but it tears a fair bit of skin with it, leaving behind a raw and bloody line.

  The Iscariot agent snarls, but she hangs onto her instincts. Not yet.

  Walking straight through the bullet storm to the nearest Rossovich bodyguard, Heinkel fires with no apparent regard to her own safety, even though she's been hit three times; with one of those enough to put a normal person down for a good long while. It doesn't seem to even be slowing her down.

  If anyone can listen closely in the midst of all that noise, though, they might hear a litany of cursing in German that manages to not repeat itself once. It might not be slowing her down, but she sure as hell feels it.

  Heinkel all but lunges at the man, attempting to get close enough to shove one of her pistols under his chin and fire. "Your boss ought to come up vit more clever insults," she snarls, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. "You, however, are in my /VAY/," she snarls, finger tightening over the trigger.

  BLAM.

Corona Arclite has posed:
Small scare aside, Corona shoves the minigun into her manipulator's storage. Tch. Little too eager there, but for someone that's use to having to grab the biggest weapon possible to deal with such a threat without being allies around... Moving on!

With her prize stashed away, Corona takes off after Alexis to make the final push. She switchs back to the Forgesweeper, unchoking the plasma shotgun and using it's spread fire to cover Maaka while she's pulling off pinpoint point-blank shots.

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Also, a vent cover on the bridge is violently expelled from its mounting just before a giant mechanical spider crawls out ...

"Black Arachnia, *maximize.*"

... and transforms into a robot on her way from vent to floor. Black Arachnia lands on her robot-mode feet, and starts attacking the bridge's security forces - swipes of her claws aimed to destroy weapons or sunder forearms if her targets are close enough, leg lasers deploying to shoot at enemies too far away for melee. She's not quite the intimidating force that some of her allies would be in this situation - she has to actually *avoid* getting shot, she doesn't trust her body's casings to be proof against the local firepower even if she can withstand bullets better than most organics - but she's banking on the element of surprise to keep the bad guys off-balance long enough to get, and keep, the upper hand.

As for any non-combat staff? Well, she can't exactly let them call for additional help ... but she'll settle for kicking them in the head, tossing them across the room, and other variants of blunt force trauma.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Rossovich:

    The soldiers flanking Rossovich fire upon Heinkel, scoring a number of hits, but they sadly don't have the damage threshold that she does, by comparison. As they reload, covering one another as they do so, the soldiers ignore the attempts at taunting as they try to push the werewolf back. The shotgunner is the least lucky, as Heinkel brings her pistol to his jaw.

    "Fuck yo-" As the pistol goes off, the soldier's head come apart, brain matter and circuitry blasting out the tip of his head, and he slumps backwards, dead.

    The other two won't fare much better either, as they try to pin Genji down.

    Problem is, Genji is a cyborg ninja with bullshit ki powers. THE DRAGON OF SHIMADA cleaves through them with the first couple of strikes, and then Genji goes for Rossovich himself.

    SHUNK! The Russian staggers briefly, twitching, as if trying to comprehend what just happened.

    Then he falls apart in two halves, dead as a doornail in classic samurai movie fashion. The circuitry meshed with tissue is apparent and while fascinating, isn't entirely pertinent. The assassins may wanna bail now, since their target's done with.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    HANGAR, NOW LABS:

    The soldiers are caught off guard by Blackarachnia, as the Maximal proceeds to pop out of the vents like some sort of xenomorph. "AAAAAAAAAAA!" Their rifles and cybernetic limbs are split in twain with every swipe of her claws, as the Maximal clears the route. Maaka thankfully slips past while her buddies take care of the rest, stopping to headshot a soldier before it can get Arachnia in the back.

    Corona helps with mopping these dudes up, and as soldiers left and right drop, Maaka continues the charge. "Samsara, doorway!" She points to a terminal for Kotone to hack, while she drops back into the melee. "Chaser, cover her!"

Genji Shimada (1007) has posed:
    The sheathing of the Dragonblade is accompanied by one last roar from the emerald green dragon curling and spiraling around Genji; a roar that fades as the dragon does, as if it were flying off into the distance. The instant the blade clicks home in its sheath, several small circular 'pistons' raise up across the cyborg's body, venting a hiss of steam.

    And with the target down, it's time to escape. So that's where Genji heads, stopping long enough to give Heinkel and Devon both a brief look over his shoulder, coupled with... is that a thumbs-up? That's a thumbs-up. The next heartbeat, he's broken into a full run, intending to head for extraction - and to eliminate any enemy troops he meets along the way, so that his allies' escape is easier.

William Pauwel has posed:
    Fortunately, Will is already on his way over to the labs! Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly have that much storage space on this big old T-45. Most of its solid state storage is dedicated to things like 'being able to move' and 'how to regulate the coolant to the fusion core so it doesn't explode.' Also the T-45's fingers are not exactly the best things to type with. So Will sort of... Backs his armor into the door to the computer room and... fishes around inside?

Wait.

Wait no. He's pushing the DEPLOY BALLOONS BUTTON.

                                  -FOOMF-                                  

...And the doorway into the computer labs is suddenly occupied by both a power armor AND a set of inflated air-sacs. But these, these are different from the ones before! These are... covered in strange, black matter.

...Armored balloons.

Will huffs and tugs a lever inside his armor's cockpit. The thing bends forward slightly, its back blossoms open, and the Chaser emerges with what appears to be a whole STACK of flashdrives.

He's going to get the data off these things the OLD FASHIONED WAY.

Heinkel Wolfe (Dropped) has posed:
  Another haul of bullets rakes the corridor, and Heinkel once more bares her teeth and strides through them. Going by the way she jerks and twists, she's taking more than a few of those, kept going by adrenaline and pure stubborn willpower.

  Once the first guard is dead, it doesn't take Heinkel long to whirl, slamming her knee into the gut of the closest one and leaning over him as he crumples to shoot at the second. Her attention swings back to the first, and so does her pistol, roaring as the muzzle flashes.

  Stumbling a half-step, she ignores the blood seeping into her own clothing, or the numbing sensation in one or two limbs. Both pistols are stowed in her coat and she turns to side-step neatly around what remains of Rossovich. Stumbling every other pace, she finally slaps a hand against the wall beside herself, pausing to cough wetly, grin amidst a mouthful of blood, and flash Genji a thumbs-up of her own.

  Once he leads the way, she lopes after the ninja, keeping pace with... well, not really ease, but she's at least able to keep pace. That's probably something, in her state. Striding into a hail of gunfire is sort of a dumb thing to do, but she's tougher than the average bear. Wolf. Whatever. Also, she was apparently confident in the skills of at least a few of them to demolish the threat before she got shot at too much.

  "Let's get the Hell out of here," Heinkel mutters thickly, near to Genji. "Neat trick vit the sword, by the vay," she asides, impressed.

Corona Arclite has posed:
Time to let the hackers do their work. Corona and Hopalong stand guard at the doorway, just in case any more potential interference shows up.... Or not, as Will blocks up the entire doorway with his ARMORED BALLOONS.

".. Now there's an idea even Ah didn't think of," the vixen murmurs, scratching the back of her head.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka, Corona, and Arachnia blitz through the guards. It's pretty easy to say they don't have much trouble with the non-combatants. As Maaka kicks down the door to Level 4, she fires a burst into the ceiling to get the attention of terrified researchers. "/Leave/." She snarls, and they take her advice quite promptly.

    She knows where to find the prototypes for what they're looking for, grabbing a scientist and stealing his ID tags. (Gouging out eyes? Don't be vulgar.)

    She uses the pinched card to unlock a sealed door, before the motherlode is revealed.

    MAN PORTABLE RAILGUN RIFLES. They're super sleek assault rifle styled weapons, with power packs and magazines and everything. Maaka wastes no time hoovering the whole trove, before she secures any sort of design specs as well. Will pretty much stole everything else of note, god bless 'im.

    She hits a button on her belt, before disappearing in a shower of light and reforming aboard her ship. Everyone has been given a teleporting beacon for that purpose as well, provided they lack the means of zapping away themselves (Like Devon.)

    Aboard the Crimson Spectre, Maaka slumps against her car, blood trickling down her side as she grumbles out something. Kaz rushes to her aid, guiding her towards sickbay for repairs. "Jesus, Boss, you gotta stop not noticing when you get hurt. You're shot everywhere."

    Maaka grumbles. "I know...mmmrrrgh, guess I got excited."

Corona Arclite has posed:
Corona Arclite helps with the 'hoovering', knowing the manipulators only have so much room in them, but between Maaka and her they should have enough to pick the room clean.

After that, it's just a matter of beaming back out. Corona's automatically goes to her own ship, but from the Steamhammer she can beam over to the Spectre easily enough. So she can drop off the part of the haul she gathered up. "Ah wanna look at the schematics for these thin's at some point."

Black Arachnia (304) has posed:
Mission accomplished, yay. And she didn't get too badly damaged.

That's a pretty good outcome in Black Arachnia's opinion. Plus, she recovered all of the R&D data from the computers, even in the middle of kicking moderate quantities of bad-guy backsides. XCOM will probably be even happier for that than they are for the railgun prototypes themselves.

Once she's finished inserting a system-wiping virus into the base computers, Black Arachnia triggers her own teleporter; she doesn't need medical attention per se, but she's just as happy of a ride back to familiar territory.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa has to trust in Will, Alexis and Rory. She moves without thinking as the order comes down she moves for the door, and will jack in moving to crack it open. Hopefully William will be able to give her, the cover she needs to get the door open. <<I'm on it and if I die I am haunting your ass Will and poessing your GUN!>>