Chapter 6-171: A Road to Damnation (1/2)

Several things happened at the same time.

First, the Three Robins coolly shot right through the immaterial Holo in front of them, and the heads of three men who didn’t have the discipline to keep moving or stay in cover blew apart.

Second, a dozen women who had dropped their packs, led by Nihala, broke into a lightfoot sprint forwards through the grass.

Third, gunfire opened up from behind the blockade, and the men stationed there, especially the gunner on the half-trak and those in the machine gun nest, got lethal surprises when grenades floated up next to them and pins were pulled from a safe distance.

Fourth, Corporal Melissa Vance burst out of nowhere into visibility, two flaming Wingblades in her hand, and came down on the fire team on the west side of the road. Two men died instantly, and the last one turned, his hands burning yellow-green, shrieking as he faced her, and wound up with her burning foot in his face, sending him rolling along the ground. He recovered to shoot at her, his pistol snapping up to aim... only to find that she was ten feet in the air, arms spread wide, and already falling at him with both Blades.

His pistol didn’t quite make it up in time.

Fifth, Warrant Officer Sama Rantha slid forward like a snake, and actually glided right over the prone men in camouflage. Tremble’s golden edge was less than a foot long as it wafted through the backs of their necks in series, and they didn’t even get to gargle in disbelief before they died.

Sama rose to her feet, Fall flipping into her hand as she also sprinted towards the line of vehicles.

The blowing of the grenades and shrieks of the dying men there roused something in the transports. With a bellow, the doors on the backs were thrown open, and the troops within emerged.

“We have Bullhorn Ogres, two Minotaurs, and a Gorebull!” Sama sang out, and couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of her voice. “Energized Armor, by the way your bullets are bouncing! Get up and into Shard range, and duck and cover from those cannons they are hoisting!”

The roar of the oversized shotguns was indeed similar to a cannon going off, and the women behind dove for cover in the long grass as 4-gauge rounds tore the air apart above them. Autoshotgun rounds filled the air with hammering volleys, but their accuracy was shit, because the incoming fire from the squads in the distance was slamming into them. If the shots didn’t pierce the metal encasing them, it still rocked them back and forth and made them unsteady.

Shanissey popped up to the left of the massive creatures, the least of them eight feet tall, the Gorebull a towering mass of muscle, smoking horns, serpentine tail, and glowing eyes reaching eleven feet at least, and using a.50 caliber machine gun like a pistol... albeit with crappy accuracy, as the recoil still shook its aim to shit.

An Ignite came in, just a little eruption of fire magic, washed across the brutes, and promptly set all their ammunition on fire. This was particularly bad for the Gorebull, who was carrying a whole hefty satchel full of his ammo feed. They were still in mid-bray and bellow from the deadly firecracker eruptions when Shannissey’s Lightning Bolt tore through them from the side in thick crackling lines of happy amperage, just before she dove into the grass and rolled away from any reprisal.

Sama was coming in very fast and quite low, and actually had almost reached the blockade before the horned brutes surged out from their defenses. As they reeled from the double hits of their ammo exploding and making their guns useless and the lightning doing the crackle-walk all over them, she flowed right up onto the hood of the first Dracojeep and was on one of the Bullhorns there as it staggered. It started to focus on her when it realized she was right in front of its face, and slowly, grandly falling over backward, the bright light in its skull flaring and delivering it to the ultimate dark...

The minotaur standing right there bellowed, first kicking out with a hoof a Clydesdale might envy, then lifting the mass of its gun, also designed to be a very usable club, to bash at her.

She skidded backwards from both hits, and it charged after the woman who was only an eighth of its mass.

Nihala’s heavy Spear came swinging across precisely as its ankles as it passed behind the Dracojeep, and it unbalanced wildly, falling to the ground with a bellow, armor not helping its balance along.

Corporal Mindy Latocki rolled over right onto its back, put both of her pistols up under the edge of its thick metal helmet, and pulled both sets of triggers three times fast.

Starting to surge back up, the minotaur staggered, and then collapsed back down as the Nickelback rounds punched through its thick skull and made a mess of its brain.

The Gorebull, his side a blackened mess of half-mangled armor that had still kept him alive in the face of all those bullets going off next to him, roared and charged the small knot of women, overlong arms reaching down to heave the heavy mass of the Dracojeep and everything inside it up and out of the way, denying cover to anyone behind it.

Nihala countered by stepping into the creature and planting her Spear to face it.

The two-foot horns aiming to impale her didn’t, mostly because her Spear came up right under its throat, over its gorget, and into its extended underjaw, before locking and allowing mass to do its thing. The point drove in, the Spear braced and drove its butt into the dirt, the jaw was lifted, the horns rose and missed her entirely, and over a half-ton of massive anthroid smashed into her and sent her flying, KE=MV^2.

The Gorebull was gargling, inhuman vitality keeping it going as it staggered, reached up to the Spear driven a foot into its skull, and with demonic vitality, tugged it out in a spray of crimson-black blood.

It was just starting to bellow again as Corporal Latocki ran up its chest, put her pistols right into its helm’s eyeslits as she started to push off, and pulled the triggers.

As Corporal Latocki arced beautifully over its wild flailing, Sama slid by beneath its legs, shooting up with one hand into an important part of its anatomy, plunging Tremble into the femoral artery of its left leg and pulling it out, before re-acquiring and putting a silvery bolt from Fall into the armpit of a Bullhorn Ogre flailing about at three other women who had arrived in close to cut it down.

The upraised arm wielding its club-cannon abruptly faltered, and the three combat specialists closed in instantly. A Spear, a Sword, and a Ladyglaive spun and thrust, and the ogre gurgled and collapsed, spraying blood from throat, leg, and wrist.

That left one last minotaur, who was charging out to get at the shooters behind the blockade, unaware that every Caster there was orienting on it.

A dozen Shards rose up together, and released. The minotaur’s armored shell didn’t stop the Force effects from passing right on through, and the Warcaster’s Razor that came with them drove it from its feet. A close-range shot to the neck from one of the scouts made sure it wouldn’t get up again.