| Vultures! All of Them! | ||
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| Summary: Violet and Alexa go out into the Badlands to see if the can come across a ship out there to call their own. Of course, nothing is easy in the Badlands.   |
In the distance to the south, a light can be seen. A light that soon comes into view more clearly as the Victoria Gundam! It seems to be on a mostly ballistic trajectory, but as it nears the Badlands, the machine flips to feet first and fires off its main engines on its back. It lands about as softly as the machine can, which of course still makes the ground shake. "Sorry, Love," Vi comms over to Alexa. "I kind of, uh, forgot to fully refuel after the last mission." Alexa smiles up at Vic, standing up on the wing. "It's alright, beautiful! Just gave me some time to work on my tan." she chuckles, heading to the cockpit. Violet grins into her cockpit's camera, even though she's not sure if Alexa is able to see it or not. "Well, are you ready for another day of seeing what we can find out there?" she comms over as the Gundam points out over the wall. Alexa hops into the VF and straps in. "Sounds like a fun time to me, darlin'! Love you, by the way." she grins, turning the aircraft systems on. Violet winks to Alexa 's screen image as soon as it pops onto her 360 moniter. "The feeling's mutual, by the way. All right, I'm jumping over, let's see what we can find!" The gundam crouches down before taking a rocket assisted leap over the wall, causing a few of the guards to point and shake their fists at her. The machine is easily recognized, however, and noone takes any pot-shots at her, of course. Alexa takes off, following Vic into the Badlands. "So, how was your day?" she chuckles. Violet comms back, "Oh, the usual. A whole lot of the 'long periods of boredom' side of being in the military. I expect to hit the other side out here." Now on the ground, she runs on ahead, making her way deeper into the Badlands. "But you know how that is, of course. So what insanity do you think we'll come across today?" Alexa chuckles a bit. "Well, I'm up for anythin' as long as it ain't like that weird thing we came across last time." She stays a good distance behind, more than able to keep up. Violet comes across a building that she doesn't remember being there before, but on closer inspection, it's just as destroyed as everything else around here. "I'm not coming across anything interesting, myself. Do you spot anything from up there?" Meanwhile, in the far distance to the north, an odd looking hovercraft makes its way over a small hill. It appears to have a sort of double hull, each section having a large hatch on the front, though only the left hull has what appears to be a bridge, while the left has what looks vaguely like an aircraft carrier's deck, though if it is, the aircraft would have to be quite small. Alexa looks at her screen. "I'm gettin' nothin' here..." she says, keeping an eye on the sensor screens. "How lucky we feelin' tonight, anyway? Victoria_Gundam continues making its way along the ground, peeking into large buildings, though never seeming to find anything worth reporting. "Honestly? I don't have a really optimistic feeling today," she says, looking slightly distracted on the viewscreen as she looks through what she can see. She then does look directly into the camera with a slight grin. "But we're not gonna find anything if we don't look, right?" Far off ahead, the land carrier pauses in its advance. The turret on its hull turns to face in the general direction of Violet and Alexa's machines before finally the entire landship turns to face that direction as well. Alexa chuckles a bit. "Exactly! Good to see you in a good mood, darlin'. And there's nobody I'd rather look around with!" she smiles. Violet winks into the camera before she looks back ahead at her main monitor, looking into an old hangar that just has rubble inside it. "Of course not! Who else do you know that owns a mecha for you to borrow, not to mention a Gundam to back you up as well?" Up ahead, the hover-carrier's front hatches open up, and a mecha comes out of each, each of which quickly jump to the sides. Alexa smirks. "How many girls can say that?" she chuckles. "I'm really the luckiest gal ever." she laughs a bit. Violet grins back at the camera and says, "Not many, I'm guessing! Just one of many perks of dating me!" As she says that, a pair of beam shots lance out from the carrier's turret thought the air at the VF-22. Alexa blows a kiss to the monitor. "I ain't found a down side y...DAMN!" she sees the beams almost too late, diving suddenly to dodge the beams. Violet winks back again, but as Alexa is cut off, her face quickly shifts to much more business. "Report!" she shouts out as the back thrusters open up on her gundam. The mecha leaps into the air to get a look for herself at just what the heck is going on! Another pair of mecha launch from the distant carrier, the first two moving out wide trying to encircle, chattering on the radio a bit too openly. "Is that a Gundam?!" "Doesn't look like any type I've heard of before!" "Who cares? It's gonna be worth a fortune!" Alexa mutters something rather uncouth. "Clear here, dodged them in time. They're gonna regret that..." she says, leveling the VF back out. Soon a third pair of mecha emerge from the carrier, and the whole lot spreads out to try to encircle what they see as the more valuable target, the Victoria. Violet, for her part, takes a pot-shot with her beam rifle at the distant carrier as she identifies the source of the beams that targeted Alexa, though her snap-shot misses by a wide margin. "Just be careful out there, Love." Alexa nods. "You too. Give 'em hell, darlin'." she says straight faced, taking aim at one of them and opening fire with the micro missile clusters. She's... not happy. The mecha targeted by the missiles manages to duck behind a ruined skyscraper to avoid the missiles, though the remains of the building crumble to the ground under the assault. A few seconds after the last missile hits, it swings around the building again to open fire with its machine gun at the variable fighter, but the weapon doesn't seem to be designed to fire on craft that high and fast. "Don't ignore that fighter!" someone yells into the comms, but the other mecha continue to try to move out around to try to surround the Gundam. The carrier, however, opens fire with the beam cannons once more on Alexa. "Oh, they're gonna regret shooting first, you can count on that!" Violet says a bit darkly. Looking slightly feral, she opens up her mecha's beam shield while stowing the rifle and decides on a mecha to target. The Victoria rotates in mid air just before landing to shoot out low along the ground without touching at Violet's target. She arrives fast enough at the mecha's location, but when she pulls the beam saber, the other mecha jumps out of the way easily before pulling an axe off its hip. Alexa frowns. "First, last, they're gonna regret existin'. Goin' weapons free." she says, turning as she approaches where the mecha hid, breaking out the gatling gun, opening fire. Alexa's target turns to open fire at the same time, firing off only a few rounds before getting pelted in return. It doesn't seem to be too damaged, but it's taking cover again, keeping it from attacking further. The one with the glowing axe rushes in at Violet's mecha, getting in far too close before it swings its axe upward, actually severing the shield projector from the arm. "Shit!" shouts Violet as she once again tries to slash at the thing, but the close quarters makes it too difficult for her to get a solid hit on it. "Bastard just cut off my shield projector!" Alexa growls a bit, keeping a focused fire on her target, intent on disabling it completely. "Are you alright?" She keeps the 22 moving so she's a difficult target to hit. The mecha comes out of cover to try to fire on Alexa just in time to get pelted by the incoming fire. It stumbles backward, the machine gun fire spraying in uselessly random directions as the pilot tries to regain control of it, but the focused fire continues to wear it down until a beam peirces it completely. While it doesn't explode, it seems to be not moving anymore. The on on the Victoria pauses its assault as the pilot comms out, "Look, just hand over your machine and we might not kill you!" Violet's response is to jet backwards and pull her rifle again with her off hand, firing once to destroy hand carrying the axe. "The offer is extended to you as well, except I don't want your crappy piece of shit," Violet says back with a lot of acid in her tone. Meanwhile, another of the mecha, one of the faster moving ones, pops out of cover and opens fire on the Victoria as well, pelting it with machine gun rounds. The Victoria is a very tough mecha, however, and only really seems to have dents and scratched paint from the rounds. Alexa can't help but smirk, thinking how proud she is of her future wife, but knows better than to say anything right at this moment. Her target down, she turns to the one fighting Violet. Seeing that they're hand to hand though, she doesn't intervene yet. Instead, the space cowgirl turns to find a new target, picking the one closest to her to lock on. The handless wonder opens fire with its machine gun again, but without the second hand to steady it, the shots seem to go everywhere except the Victoria. The other takes more careful aim and starts to open fire, but then takes several rounds to its back as Alexa opens fire upon it. It stumbles forward, not quite destroyed, but its high mobility systems look to be completely shredded now. Violet takes one more shot on her first target, piercing straight through the center of mass of the machine before she turns her attention to the second. "We've still got more out there, Love. Leave this one to me, I can finish him off. Get the next one before he can sneak up." Unfortunately, Violet spoke way too soon as the other fast one shows up just around a building and fires a bazooka at the Victoria. High speed and aim are apparently exclusive for this pilot, however, as the missile sails right past the Victoria. Alexa glares at the bazooka wielding mecha, now focusing all her attention towards it. She levels the 22's beam cannon at it, and fires without any warning or snappy patter. While firing she approaches it, face twisted in anger. That faster moving one takes the lasers full on the chest, piercing through it and knocking it backwards. It doesn't explode, but it's certainly not moving. Violet bares down on the one she just told Alexa to ignore, and pierces it through the chest as well. "Did you see how many of them were out there, 'Lexa? I'm not picking up any more, but I'm pretty sure I saw a mothership of some sort." Keeping the beam rifle ready, the Victoria turns left and right, ready for another target to arrive. "These guys fought like amateurs." Alexa shakes her head. "I didn't exactly count, darlin'. And yeah, these guys are like kids with toys that didn't read the instructions. Where'd you see the ship?" she asks, turning about. Violet opens her thrusters again and test fires them on low to make sure they're not damaged from the rounds she's taken, while meanwhile she picks up the severed shield projector. "I think to the north? There was something big and red out there," she comms over. "Didn't look like what we're looking for from my quick glance, though. Why is there always so much radar interference out here?" Meanwhile, the last two mecha are running back towards said mother ship, never having gotten to within combat range of the Victoria, though from the sky they, and the mothership, might be spotted. Alexa smirks a little, watching the last two go. "Aw, ain't they cute runnin' with their tail between their legs. Your call, gorgeous. Should we chase after 'em? Or did they learn their lesson?" Victoria_Gundam opens its thruster packs fully, holding them open for a few seconds before closing them again. "No... Let them run," Violet eventually says, somewhat reluctant sounding. "I don't want to lose this shield projector, it looks like it was cut pretty cleanly and should be... relatively easy to repair. If we got into combat again, I think it might be a bit hard to keep track of it, or to fight while holding it the whole time. I'll file a report that they're out there." Alexa nods a bit, frowning. "Are you alright, darlin'? Don't sugar coat it. That looked rough." Violet sighs and nods into the camera. "That one had a lucky hit... It's the only real damage I'm showing, but I'm gonna guess there's a lot of dings to hammer out." The gundam crouches down, then leaps into the air with a rocket assisted jump, heading back off to the south. "Let's head in, I'm probably not going to want to operate out here with Victoria again until after the shield projector is working again." Alexa nods again. "Alright love, let's go home. Where can we get Victoria fixed?" Violet keeps the engines on, taking her clear to the wall again before making a landing a bit more heavy than when she first arrived. "I might be able to pull rank to get it repaired at the base, but more than likely that's gonna be nearly as much trouble as just fixing it myself with some help at the workshop. She's got repair cranes down there, so if it's as simple as it looks from here, it really shouldn't be that difficult." | |
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