Though from this distance, the plasma blasts didn't do any real damage to the Blood Pack force ahead of the platform, Many-As-One nonetheless accomplished his goal of attracting attention back toward the rest of Team Five. Two of the vorcha began firing missiles at Many-As-One. One would pass wide, and the other was coming right at the Geth platform.SirNitram wrote:"Multiple inbounds. Switching to maximum refire." Without the charge up, the plasma shotgun was able to lay down a devastating hail of withering fire. Not even a Vorcha could regenerate from the white-hot heat of the weapon, and Many used his subroutines well to walk the fire, advancing slowly and presenting a clear target.
As the young Quarian ran, the missile that had missed Many-As-One came within a bare meter of striking him in the chest. From this distance though, the large group of Blood Pack was only now beginning to appear in the distance of the gloom, and they didn't appear to have any weapons other than missiles for long range.Soleimon Berserker wrote:"Sol'Amon. Advancing to a forward assault position, I should be able to provide a crossfire with your team from here." He said with a small grin on his face, "I would'a let you know guys know I was gonna do this but that would've ruined my window."
Breathing evenly and watching the positions around him, Sol quickly thanked the Goddess and Ancestors that he'd thought to holster his Locust before making the run, the sub-machine gun was light but even that could have slowed him down an infinitesimal amount enough to not make it.
Even so, his directed sprint had attracted more attention from the group, as some of the varren that weren't menacing Iona began to run toward the rest of Team Five - and toward Soleimon and Many-As-One in particular.
Junko's surprising exit had the negative side-effect of confirming to the three vorcha and one krogan hunting for her that she was, in fact, there.Sabre72 wrote:Junko keyed her radio, "Look to the sky gents, am over here!" She was going to get the attention of everyone.
With that said, Junko charge upwards into a 45° angle toward Iona and team 5's general area, while in mid air and falling Junko found some cover she could attempt to get to. She unleashed another 45° angle charge with a roar as she bioticly tossed herself to the rocky ash layered ground.
She landed with a small thud and roll back onto her feet, she then ran to suitable cover she found while in the air, upon arriving she fell prone into cover, drained from that sudden burst of exertion she applied, however it was only a dent in her endurance.
The positive side-effect was that the abruptness of her action didn't do anything to help their aim, though she did have to charge through a gout of flame as she went upward, which scorched her armor somewhat.
The group of four after Junko began to run, now that they had finally spotted their prey.
It may have been Junko's imagination, but she thought she heard a muffled explosion from within the facility, shaking the building slightly.
A turian's vision was highly acute, comparable to a Terran raptor. He was barely able to make out shapes in the gloom of the volcanic atmosphere from this distance, though he was able to see the dull glowing blue flash of Iona using a biotic ability.Agent Fisher wrote:Maraka watched the Vorcha crumble, the hiss of steam and a blinking indicator flashed in his helmet, showing the heat sink was overheating. But that would have to wait as he saw the rocket screaming towards him. His arm came up, a barrier shimmering into place just as the rocket impacted. The warhead detonated, sending out smoke and shrapnel. His barrier, shields and armor did their jobs, leaving Maraka with nothing more than a bad headache and fresh dings in his armor. The Turian biotic refocused his attention on his rifle, the heat sink dropping out, a new one slapped in.
He moved forward, tapping Lysander on the shoulder. "Advancing!" He called out, rifle at the low ready, sharp turian eyes scanning for targets.
Maraka would need to get closer to shoot with any degree of accuracy, or use any of his abilities.
Even at this distance, once a target had been outlined, a competent tech could begin to use certain tricks on them. In this case, a krogan in the middle of roaring with exultation at having almost cornered the asari stopped, as his shield generator suddenly shorted out, his kinetic barrier dropping instantly.frigidmagi wrote:Lysander dove behind a swallow rise of ground seeking cover. He pulled out his omni-tool and got to work.
"Adepts, close and unload on them. Everyone one else hit 'em hard we need to waste these assholes." He orders. He hit in the last command on his omni-tool, readying an overload command. He moved ahead to the next piece of scanty cover. One of these days he would have to get his own moving wall or something.
Though Iona took quite a few hits as she moved, a part of her mind watching her shields steadily being whittled away, she nonetheless escaped the deathtrap that the Blood Pack group was attempting to lock her into. The varren seemed angry at having been cheated of their prey, and raised howls as they continued to give chase.White Haven wrote:The ground was getting dubiously close again. Landing facing the same direction as her trajectory would be workable, but the twisting motion that brought the Blood Pack forces into view made that less than likely. The solution, of course, mirrored the second half of the other biotic's 'jump,' albeit without the dramatic, flashy explosions of force on each end. She blurred into motion again, streaking forwards and down until her booted feet made contact with the ground again. Without hesitation, she tucked into a tight roll, absorbing the force of her meteoric plunge across her body and the kinetic barriers still stubbornly clinging around her battered armour.
The vorcha began to spread out, giving one another better angles of fire at Iona. The asari was relatively lucky, though - only one of the missiles struck her shields, which were able to take most of the blast before failing.
Finally though, Iona could begin to make out advance elements of the rest of Team Five, steadily and quickly approaching her location.
The first round of the Widow went wide, striking a cargo container very close to the vorcha. The second round of Shaddai's Widow, on the other hand, went true - one of the two vorcha who had begun firing rockets at the approaching elements of Team Five suddenly stopped aiming, as his head was very suddenly missing, before collapsing drunkenly to the ground.General Havoc wrote:And so, when the Quarian broke cover and raced ahead, away from the rest of the group, exposing himself to fire to reach a distant point of cover well beyond any friendly support, Shaddai did not swear, nor did any of its constituent programs. But there was a moment or two where the programs that comprised it might well have wanted to.
Instead though, Shaddai acted.
The blue-painted Geth infiltrator rose from his distant cover to a standing position. For a tiny second, the Geth raised its Widow anti-materiel rifle to its shoulder, an act which would have broken the collarbone or equivalent of any living being save a Krogan. Instead it fired a round capable of penetrating two inches of mass-compacted armor straight at the helmet of one of the flamethrowing Vorcha attempting to incinerate the friendly biotic. But without stopping to ascertain the effect of this round, Shaddai instead began to run.
There was nothing robotic about Shaddai running. The basic Quarian design had been modeled, of course, after themselves, and improvements made by the Violator conclave over the centuries had been noted and copied and in a few cases improved on by the Loyalists. Infiltrator protoforms moved with speed and even grace, traversing the broken ground effortlessly at maximum velocity, its eye flicking from point to threat point, sensors monitoring changes in wind speed, enemy positioning, and overall flow of the battle. Though Shaddai could not receive the information being psychically broadcast to the organic members of the team, its proximity radar, 3D-imaging software, and sensory-triangulation algorithms, manned as ever by dozens of efficient Geth programs, gave it very near to the same level of information. Yet whatever threats Shaddai uncovered, it moved regardless, for a higher priority was in play, and not one of the programs aboard would question that.
Shaddai's target was a wrecked and burnt-out armored vehicle, the very same one that the Quarian had abandoned to push on ahead. And as it ran at top speed, holding its sniper rifle in one hand, with its other hand, it drew a large pistol from its side. Without breaking stride, Shaddai aimed the pistol forward, at the cover it was approaching, and fired a dozen rounds with one hand. The shots struck home, hitting points identified as 'weak' by a quick structural analysis carried out in a quarter of a second by two thousand Geth. Running at high speed as it was, only nine of the shots struck home at their designated targets, of which six did not penetrate the cover, and three did. But three was enough. One would have been.
Fifteen feet from cover, Shaddai's body threw itself down, its feet gripping at the top layer of the soil, carving a furrow in the dirt as the charging Geth slid in unconscious imitation of a human baseball player, straight into its chosen cover. Yet this was not enough. As Shaddai slid, it holstered its pistol, and brought its rifle around with both arms, positioning it carefully. As the slide came to a stop, directly behind the hulking vehicle, Shaddai extended the rifle ever so slightly, sliding the end of the barrel directly into one of the holes that it had just shot through the imposing armored vehicle.
There was half a second allocated to adjusting body positioning and weapon trajectory, and then Shaddai fired.
The shot was aimed at the Blood Packer it had identified as most likely to spot and/or shoot at the Quarian. From the perspective of the target, it would be as though the long-dead vehicle had spontaneously begun flinging parts of itself at him, rendering return fire all-but pointless. Hopefully it would also give the Quarian time to get into something approximating cover.
It was only at this point that the rest of the Blood Pack group had begun to realize that they were no longer hunting - they were prey.
One of the krogans roared, and the others took up the call, right before they all began to run at the advance elements of Team Five, shotguns at the ready. The vorcha scampered after them, firing off missiles as they darted from cover to cover.
The varren, on the other hand, had all stopped, and seemed to be listening, even as the vorcha and krogan seemed intent only on Team Five.
Just a moment later, a mass of varren came running out of the facility. They didn't howl, they didn't bark, they didn't make any noise at all except pants for breath and the steady drumbeats of their paws hitting the ground.
They didn't run toward the rest of Team Five, they didn't run toward the shuttles, and they didn't run toward the rest of the Blood Pack. They instead made a beeline for the far hills, only barely visible in the distance through the volcanic haze.
The varren present outside the facility seemed to silently confer, and then left the rest of the Blood Pack group at a run, following their brethren away from the battle, the facility, and apparently everything else.
