Private Gilded

[Mercy]

Darth Libertas

It was chaos.

But the kind where Mercy felt right at home. Her blood ran hot, her eyes wild, but the swings of her cleaver were sharp and hit home every time. She co-opted her mass, the surprise her arrival incurred to her enemy. It was over before it had even started. Even if the mercenaries could be forgiven for not realizing it.

They were drawn to her cleaver like mosquitos to a flame. It made them abandon all tactics. Even as Koanai's troops mowed them down, they turned around to the eye of the storm. Mercy in other words.

Mercy couldn't feel the pain.

Even as raw plasma hit her several times. Burned her shoulder, her hip, someone managed to shoot her through the shoulder too. From all sides the Sith was being encircled. Mercy didn't notice. "Come then, come and die!" She screamed theatrically as she grappled with two mercenaries who had launched themselves at her.

Discarding their weapons, instead clawing to get at her with their hands and teeth.

It was getting quite messy.

Mercy was having the time of her life.

 

[Darth Libertas]

Mercy

All was going well.

Almost too well for Koanai's tastes.

The Sith was carving through the ranks of the mercenaries like a hot knife through butter. Even those mercenaries who stood at a distance did not just cease firing at her soldiers, but charged the Sith with mindless abandon. Some even discarded their blasters, coming at Mercy in a flurry of hands and teeth. "Like fish in a barrel, ma'am," one of her soldiers said cheerfully through the comm. "C'mon, arseholes."

"Don't get cocky, Alakk," she responded warningly. "Keep shooting. Let's end this quickly." Squeezing the trigger, she put a round through the chest of a soldier who had been charging Mercy from behind with a vibroblade. He fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. And then came words she had dreaded to hear. "Ma'am, 5 o'clock, it's the Goliath!" her spotter called out. Immediately she swept her rifle towards the indicated area, and froze.

It was a large, hulking droid advancing in the distance. The bipedal warbot towered over the soldiers, even someone as formidable and ripped as Mercy. One of its arms sported a large cannon, the other held a chainsaw.

It levelled its cannon towards the building. "Off the roof," Koanai yelled, getting up and bolting, her spotter Yussuf in tow. Then it let the cannon rip, unleashing a hailstorm of crimson rounds. Koanai ran as the cannon fire hammered the roof.

Then suddenly the fire stopped...for a brief moment as the droid charged up its cannon, and spat out a concentrated scarlet beam. She heard a cry of pain that was not her own, and jumped. She hit the ground hard as smoke rose from the roof, part of it coming apart.

She felt a sharp, searing pain her side. "Yussuf?" she asked. There was no response. She turned, shook the body and found the soldier's face had been disintegrated.

"Frak," she swore. There would be time for mourning later. Survival came first. Trying to move caused pain to shoot through her leg. Wincing, she retrieved a small pack and primed the syringe. She bit down on a piece of cloth when she injected it to keep herself from biting off her tongue. The pain surging through her body was torturous. But after a moment the pain passed, and she felt herself filled with energy.

"Major!" one of her sergeants called out, crossing the distance to help her up.
"I'm alright, Yussuf's down. Mynock team?"
"Two wounded, the medic is with them. We don't have the firepower to breach that bot on our own. Think the Sith's magic can take it?"

It was tempting to just let the Sith fight the bot, but Koanai shook her head. "We fall back to the Alpha line." She activated her comm. Hopefully, Mercy would get the message. "Sith, we can't take the bot here, but we have explosives prepared. There's this narrow street in the south. Our Alpha line. We'll trap it there."

 

[Mercy]

Darth Libertas

Mercy whirled back to meet-

The body already collapsed to the floor. That one earned Koanai a cheerful crimson salute, before Mercy went back to it. In the back of her head she was aware that had been too close. She wouldn't have been able to meet the merc on her own. Without Koanai's sniper? Most likely would have been gutted on the spot there.

Surviveable?

Yes, Firrerreo blood could survive a lot o' chit, but it would have been messy.

There was more fighting, more wounds wrecked on her, more adrenaline pumping. All of that stopped however some heart beats later. When that droid got on the scene?

Even Mercy was stopped in her tracks.

She stayed low and send up a thanks to the Darkside. At least droids couldn't be influenced by her butcher's knife. That would have been a really short battle otherwise. Mercy wasn't sure what to do next. The battle with the oversized rancor-like creature unleashed on Avalore and her by Ashin Cardé Varanin instilled a pretty fierce respect for the rare breed that was LARGER than her.

Luckily Koanai's voice hummed through the commlink.

"Sith, we can't take the bot here, but we have explosives prepared. There's this narrow street in the south. Our Alpha line. We'll trap it there."

Mercy nodded even though the Twi'lek probably couldn't see.

"Yah, I dun' think I can take that'a'one." It hurt to admit. "I will lure it tho. I be good at bein' a nuisance. Get in position while I do mah magic." Mercy grinned and sheathed her knife. There was little that could do to that reinforced hulk of a droid. Instead? Mercy picked up one of the rifles from a dead merc. It had a grenade launcher attachment.

This wouldn't destroy the droid... but would get its attention at least.

 

[Darth Libertas]

Mercy

The large war boot loomed the soldiers, Sith-aligned and opposed. Heavy footfalls were heard as the tank droid stomped across the street. It scanners had picked up the amazonian Sith. From a certain point of view, its deployment should be flattering to Sith. As if to prove that the bot had been unleashed with more than run of the mill soldiers in mind, it activated a cannon concealed on its shoulder, letting loose a hailstorm of sharp flechettes towards the grenade launcher-wielding Sith.

Koanai was running as fast as she could. The earth trembled when the droid's main cannon discharged a searing laser beam, filling the air with heat and ozone. The cocktail of drugs in her system fed her vigour. Eventually the high would wear off and the crash would hurt, but she would deal. Anything that got you out of battle alive.

The Sith had her role, and she and her troopers had theirs. "Come on, move!" she yelled, calling to her team to make sure there were no stragglers. And suddenly it was like a sith sense had been triggered, for she felt an urge to suddenly turn, as if there was an unspoken command inside her mind. Koanai was not Force-Sensitive in the sense of Mercy and Libertas.

She had been told that she possessed the barest Force affinity. Not enough to punch through walls, shoot lightning bolts from her fingertips or chuck boulders with her mind. But enough for the slightest edge. She didn't quite understand, but trusted her instincts. And said instincts compelled her to spin to the left, fire her service pistol and yell a warning to her team.

So that they engaged the mercenaries flanking them. High-powered blaster pistols dropped the mercenary who had just burst out at her. Another warning screamed inside her mind. This one did not come quickly enough to keep her from being grazed. It felt like someone had given her a hard clap and the bolt burnt her left forearm. On reflex she fired even as the burning sensation set in. The shooter was forced to hide behind debris as the shots ricochetted before being mowed down by a comrade.

But as she staggered, the butt of a rifle slammed into her skull. The Twi'lek soldier fell to the ground from the impact, feeling white-hot pain. She wearing a helmet and this blunted the impact, but did not nullify the concussive force. It caused her pistol to drop. Blood streamed out of a wound inside her forehead. Drugs, and survival instinct kicked in.

She kicked the man to drop him before he could shoot her. His elbow slammed into her and she reeled. His hands seized her throat. They tightened and constricted. Dark spots danced around her vision. Gasping, she sunk her teeth into his nose. He had not been wearing a full helmet. He howled and pulled a hold-out blaster to jab against it her throat...but she was faster and drove her dagger through his eye and into his brain. The weapon was coated with blood and brain matter when she withdrew. The Twi'lek breathed in deeply, heart thumping. Still in pain, she forced herself up and bolted. She was close.

 

[Mercy]

Darth Libertas

Mercy was entirely flattered.

She also didn't hate this situation at all.

The adrenaline was still pumping through her veins. She was ecstatic. Heavy breathing, heart pumping, chest moving up and down, as she sprinted away from the droid while it whirred after her. Sadly the war-droid had several gun barrels that kept firing even as it chased after her. The barrels were aimed all around and causing absolute mayhem.

Though probably for the best.

If they were ALL pointed at the Sith, she would most likely not have been able to dodge them, Force or not.

"You still alive Koanai??" Mercy panted over the commlink as she dropped over a dumpster and hid behind it for a moment. Just to catch her breath... just a moment.

This wasn't her spiel at all.

Running? Who karking ran like this? Definitely not Mercy. It was a wonder she wasn't dead. "Maybe I need to do more cardio...." More to herself than to the Twi'lek, but that wasn't very obvious. "Anyway, coming up to the kill box. Y'all ready? Cus I am gonna be a sitting duck the moment I manage to maneuver it into it."

And Mercy would prefer to avoid being turned into rinced meat.

 

[Darth Libertas]

Mercy

She was close, so close. Blaster fire hammered the ground as she ran. Stormtroopers opened up on the mercenaries shooting from down the street, unleashing intense automatic weapons' fire to cover their chief's sprint. The air was awash with bolts of scarlet and filled with ozone. And the heavy footfalls of the war bot were like a thunderclap.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins. Her heart thumped inside her chest, as her comm rang. "Soon," she grunted, sounding short of breath, "just hold on a bit longer." She picked up the pace, depressing the trigger in rapid succession when a mercenary suddenly appeared from behind a corner.

Then there was a loud explosion. She was not in the immediate blast radius. But the shockwave knocked her off her feet and slammed her into the dirt. She cried out in pain. Thick smoke billowed into the sky.

The thunder clap was getting closer. Red bolts came from a rooftop. She crawled across broken ground. Koanai looked at the huge bot looming over them, and saw a running Mercy. She looked at the street the droid was crossing, and smiled with cracked lips. "Mercy...run like hell," she said through the comm with a groan, and brought forth a detonator. The bot levelled its guns at the motley band - all of them - and she triggered the explosive charges.