Ch. 16 Rescue in the Ruins

[VirusZero]

OOC:
Just a heads up Itano, since we haven't played together before, my character... Andraia is not a nice character. (She's a pretty messed up character with a ton of anger issues and just a little bit psychopathic. She's killed numerous humans already and has no issue with carving them up. So if I write that she says or does something insulting or rude or etc... that's who she is and it's not a reflection of what I think.)

IN:
Andraia heard Rioku call out to her, seemed like the first time he'd actually tried to call her by name.
"I'm fine" she called back. Though she also heard Vector's warning and certainly enough there were more enemies ahead, coming right for them.

Bees. Little flying annoyances. She readied her buster and fired into the oncoming mass of enemies. Her shot ripped through one of the small machines and spread parts all over the ground. She fired again and took down yet another.

Another of the resistance members, Raven, was going very trigger happy and taking out everything. Andraia stopped firing, figuring to let him waste his energy. She started to move away when she heard the sound of Rioku's power building up. Fireballs broke forth from the sky and began to rain down. Rioku's warning came late as one of the fireballs crashed down nearby and nearly hit Andraia.

She intended to snap at him, but the sound of incoming pain and fire made her leap to the side instead (as another fireball impacted the ground).

Andraia looked up and saw several more of the fireballs careening towards her. She spun to the right and dodged two of them but the third grazed her leg, leaving a nice burn mark on her leg. Which would have been more apparent had she not been wearing black.

Though, as luck would have it, those two fireballs that she had dodged collided with a group of bees and exploded them all in a single volley.

Though Rioku and Vector were having good luck clearing through the enemies regardless.

Then she heard the sound of that new recruit... his breathing as he struggled to keep up. Human? Andraia wondered. If so what would compel a meatbag to get into the fray and fight with reploids? To say he was outclassed would be an understatement.

Though his little toy had managed to stop some of the fireballs and seemed prime to handle this new situation with leaves obscuring the ground traps. His burst of wind was effective at clearing leaves.

"Congratulations, if we need to clear old people's lawns to thwart Neo-Arcadia we'll call you first. But if that's the best you have you might want to go back to mowing lawns or whatever you kids do." Andraia stated, rather coldly.

Even though the traps had been largely revealed, Andraia still didn't feel like just walking through them. If they were willing to plant defences that could tear into their armour, what would stop them from burying a few landmines or other explosives around too? And she really didn't want to deal with that. So instead of walking she decided to fly.
With that the jets on her boots engaged and she ascended. She kept her speed stead and rather slow to conserve energy for now. But she still raised herself above the treeline, just enough to see what was around.

It seemed like the bees were gone for now, possibly they had fled to alert those ahead that they'd been attacked. Either that or they had actually managed to take out most of them in this area. Andraia bet the former.

Then she spotted smoke from up ahead. She descended somewhat quickly so that she was several feet over the ground.
"I'm going ahead" she announced.

And with that she kicker her thusters into higher gear and took off deeper into the forest. She wove around a tree, banking and swerving to ensure that she wouldn't crash. Though a forest wasn't exactly an ideal place for flying.
The only way it could get better was if an enemy showed up and they had to fight while flying through it. Thankfully no such enemy appeared.

A few minutes later Andraia slowed down. She had reached a clearing. The area was burned with the unmistakable charring of buster fire on the ground and foliage. Someone had fought here and lost. A small rock rose from the area off to the side and laying up against it was one of the resistance's soldiers.

Andraia moved over to him, he seemed to still be online. But he didn't look in the best shape. Missing most of his left side, vital fluid all over the place and sparking at random.
He noticed her and attempted to speak.
"Guuhzzzz" was all that emanated from his vocal system at first. But a second attempt managed to fair better.
"Watzzzch... owwt... for... " and then his voice system failed entirely.

"Go home." she muttered and tagged him to send him back to the resistance base. If nothing else they could use him for spare parts.