Not sure if this is the right place to dump it, but I might as well get some opinions I guess. If it needs to be moved, just let me know.
Battle of Mogadishu:
The sun finally rose over the barren desert, covering the ruins of the city in warm light. It had been a long 24 hours.
Strato's arm hurt. He looked down. The stump had already begun to heal, and some rubbery fingers were beginning to form at the end. But it still hurt like hell.
"Fuck." He said. Strato looked around--bodies of men lay in piles. His HUD registered no signs of life in his premises. Strato stood up, shaking. Over the last few hours his suit had mostly repaired itself, and was probably capable of flight. I should get back to base. He thought. There was a sound of roaring thunder as his Harpy build lifted off the dry earth. Breaking the sound barrier was like plunging his face into ice water.
Refreshing.
A few hours earlier:
"Strato, watch your six!" A fuzzy voice came through the helmet of Strato's RAMM suit. Should've gotten better communicators. He thought as he pounded the would-be assassin into a nearby wall with his shield, then emptied the remainder of his clip into the man's broken body. I can barely hear a fucking thing.
"Thanks." He yelled to his squad leader, who nodded in reply, reloading her laser rifle over the bodies of two slain Vox Populi troops. Strato fired up his flight systems and ascended to the top of a nearby ruin, where he looked over the scene.
Mogadishu was destroyed. Through the fog of night, he could see the city was ablaze with fire that illuminated the bodies of hundreds of men and more than a few slain suits. He jumped down across a large retaining wall, onto the roof of a building below. His thrusters cushioned the fifty-foot fall.
"Well." Strato said to himself. "Where do I go now?" Dammit, I should have gotten a radio or something. He mentally slapped himself, and proceeded over to the nearest suit he could find. The man was stone-dead, and a magnificent phoenix was emblazoned on his chestpiece, the symbol of the Empyrean Knights. Strato payed his respects, then without ceremony tore the man's radio from his helmet. He won't be needing it anymore.
"This is Stratovarius Espera, piloting the RAMM Warglaive Ascendant." Strato said through the transmitter. "I need orders. Anyone out there wanna give me some? I'm really fucking bored." He waited a few seconds before there was a reply.
"This is base 6," came the voice, crackly with static. "We have your position, are you injured?"
"Nah. Well, my suit's taken some damage, but it's repairing. Should be in mint condition in 5."
"Roger. Sending reinforcements to your position."
"How many?"
"Two."
Strato sighed. Damn, they're really going out of their way here. He hopped back up to the taller building and sat, waiting for his meager help. And sure enough, they came. Off in the distance, he could see them, and his heart leaped. Not two soldiers. Two suits.
"It's gonna be a good da--" Strato cut himself short. The suits had their thrusters fully-engaged. They were running from something... he adjusted his focus.
Behind them, only around 300 meters and closing, was a swarm of soldiers. There had to be fifty... and ten of them were suits.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!" He leaped down to join the two. One was a Heavy, with an urban camo design on his suit. The massive man wielded a gatling laser with both hands. He seemed cheery.
"Markus Price of the Cannon Ziggurat, reporting for duty SIR!" He shouted, standing at attention. The other suit was close behind him. Obviously female, she was smooth in her movements. After the hazy dust cleared, Strato could tell it was the squad leader.
"Shit, uh" he said. "What was your name again?"
"Layla." She responded. "Now let's get ready. We got a whole lot of tangos incoming."
"We're not running?" Markus exclaimed, mortified.
"Hell no." Layla said. "Base 6 gave me orders to hold this position, or die trying. There's 2 suit pods in that building back there. Can't let the Vox get their grimy little hands on that."
"Three suits for the price of two." Strato muttered.
"What?"
"Never min--" Strato was cut off as a plasma bolt tore the air between him and the squad leader. Layla tore off to the right, taking cover behind a building and strafing heavy laser rifle fire.
"Take positions!" She shouted. "Cannon, take the north building, give suppressing fire! Glaive, hold your position!"
"But I'm in the middle of the fucking street!" Strato unloaded his two shoulder cannons into a couple ground troops appearing out of the haze. Layla sounded exasperated.
"Hold near your fucking position then. Goddammit just kill them!" There was a heavy thumping as the sound of Markus' minigun tore through the ranks of soldiers. Strato whipped out his spear and charged forward, putting his thrusters into turbo and letting out a battle cry. He charged into a group of men, taking a few hits to his shield, and let loose with the blade. It decapitated a couple of them on the initial strike, then found its mark through the chest armor of a third. The squad leader's rounds pinned the last one to the nearest wall. Blood from two sliced jugulars spurted over Strato's facemask, distorting his HUD readings. He hurriedly wiped it off.
"Shit, I'm getting interference!"
"Suck it the fuck up and keep fighting!" Layla shouted. "Don't compromise your posi--"
There was a roaring noise, like a tide crashing on a beach, and Layla was torn in two by a beam of blue light. Her gore was spread across the dust-covered street. She wasn't even alive enough to scream. Two suits appeared out of the haze, unloading rifles at Strato. He dodged them as best he could, but took a few hits to his suit. He ran across the street, and took out one of the suits with fire from his shoulder cannons. Layla must have weakened its pressure rating before she went splat. He thought to himself. But the second suit is still operational. The other suit maintained position out in the open.
"Cannon Ziggurat, where the fuck are you? He's right fucking there!" Strato screamed at the Heavy.
"I got your back!" Was the response. Markus, covered in heavy armor, appeared out of nowhere and tore the second suit in half with his bare hands. He was heavily damaged and his suit was covered in his own blood. He hurriedly rendezvoused with Strato.
"I took out a good twenty of them. You?"
"Uhh... four? Fucking squad leader took a plasma cannon to her tits, she won't be joining us for grub tonight I'm afraid."
"But neither of those suits had a plasma cannon." Markus said.
"What?"
Before the Heavy could reply, more fire came tearing from the alley behind the pair. Strato lunged forward and quickly dispatched two troops with his spear and then obliterated another with his particle beam. Another five rushed out the door nearby, to meet the same fate.
"Strato!" The cry came from the street. Strato engaged his thrusters and jumped out into the open, where he was met with a sorry sight. An intimidating-looking Vox Populi suit was standing over the fallen body of Markus.
"I... I got him..." Markus managed to stutter, gesturing to a hole in the suit's ribcage. But then the suit unleashed a plasma pulse and spread the Heavy across the tarmac.
"You fucker!" Strato screamed, engaging his flight and lunging at the unit. This one seemed strong... very strong. This may have been a mistake. Strato thought to himself during the split second before his glaive made connection with the enemy suit, grazing it. He quickly assessed the suit's capabilities through his HUD. Flight, regeneration two, invisibility... it even sacrificed any temperature resistance to leave room for a massive amount of weaponry, definitely more combat-capable than his suit. The man must be pouring sweat inside his suit.
Strato looked on, dismayed, as his spear didn't even penetrate the Vox's armor.
"My turn!" The Vox shouted, and grabbed Strato by the back of his neck, forcing him to the ground. "You fucked with the wrong suit today, little Knight! I'm gonna pound you to the earth's core!"
"Fucking bring it on!" Strato shouted, giving his combatant an elbow to the face. He engaged thrusters and put some distance between himself and his enemy. Wrong move... shit.
The ground shook with the amount of firepower directed at his suit. Strato quickly engaged his plasma shield, but was astonished when a stray missile managed to penetrate. He blocked it with his arm shield, but was catapulted ten meters back. The Vox laughed. Strato's HUD displayed the words "HEAVY DAMAGE" in bright red. The Vox's structural integrity was still at almost 80 percent. I'm so fucked.
Strato thought for a split second as the Vox's munitions reloaded themselves. Weaknesses, weaknesses...
No temperature resistance.
"Well, Knight?" The Vox laughed as his plasma cannon was almost fully-charged again. "Ready for hell?" Even though Strato knew the Vox couldn't see through his helmet, he couldn't help but smirk. He let out a burst from both his wings and his thrusters and lunged at the Vox, who released his plasma cannon. Strato blocked with his shield, but it ricocheted off and took out a building. He was flung to the right, but managed to correct himself, as he latched on to the back of the Vox's armor, strangling him with the shaft of his glaive. Then he lifted off.
The two went higher and higher, and Strato almost lost grip of his opponent as he broke the sound barrier again.
"Let go of me!" The Vox shouted. "You little shit..." Strato grinned.
"I can hear the fear in your voice." He said calmly. "Who fucked with the wrong suit now?" He had the Vox in a death grip. Burned out from firing so many weapons, the enemy suit had little power left to put up a struggle. Here we go.
The two exited the atmosphere. Strato could hear the Vox screaming in pain as his body was covered in second-degree burns. And then they were in space.
There's something calming about zero-G. Strato thought, trying to ignore the cries of pain beneath him. Stuck in the Earth's orbit, he gained speed. Faster and faster he went, until he managed to reach near to the moon. It was very cold, now. His suit read an outside temperature of -150 degrees Celsius. And this is where Strato left the Vox. The unfortunate man floated, quickly freezing to death, into the moon's gravitational field as Strato returned to Earth.
The fight had only taken around five minutes, but it seemed like it had been hours. Strato's HUD flashed "Enemy vitals nonexistent. Wanted Vox Populi Corporal Vanus Ballium II--Terminated," displaying mugshots of the man he had just killed. The Vox was young, almost as young as Strato.
Strato landed on the same street the battle had begun on, exhausted. Piles of dead bodies lay around him. Many had died by his own hand. Then a panic attack hit him. My hand. He looked down and winced when he realized he couldn't move his arm. The stray missile from the Vox had pierced his armor, resulting in a hole in the temperature-resistant fabric. His arm had frozen solid. Strato looked away and retracted the armor from his rock-hard appendage... and banged it on a wall. It shattered into pieces, and he screamed in pain.
The pain only lasted a few minutes, though. Strato was finally able to sleep...
The next morning, the sun finally rose over the barren desert, covering the ruins of the city in warm light. It had been a long 24 hours. Strato's arm hurt. He looked down. The stump had already begun to heal, and some rubbery fingers were beginning to form at the end. But it still hurt like hell.
"Fuck." He said. Strato looked around--bodies of men lay in piles. His HUD registered no signs of life in his premises. Strato stood up, shaking. Over the last few hours his suit had mostly repaired itself, and was probably capable of flight. I should get back to base. He thought. There was a sound of roaring thunder as his Harpy build lifted off the dry earth. Breaking the sound barrier was like plunging his face into ice water.
Refreshing.
