Day in the Life: Rescue from the Depths

[Uso]

**BRRRRRRRR!**

Jun fired all of her bullets at the thing's face, letting the auto-aim do its work as she held down the trigger and emptied her entire magazine.

**THUMP**

She then fired her under mounted grenade launcher, again aiming for the thing's face.

"Uh..."

Jun was now out of ammo inside of her gun entirely and she was unsure of what to do now that her bullets were all gone. She'd quickly reach for one of the spare magazines on her belt, having enough mechanical practice to start reloading the gun as she leaped off to the side as if she were in a John Woo movie.

Of course, a change in vibes meant her current look was no good. In virtuality she'd switch to a new outfit, a light button down and white pants fit for a hero.

 

[Soresu]

Koyama had been silent for most of the exchanges. Why had Mother-Empress not allowed them the more flashy weapons? What had killed those Chongwu? Wen'd been right that they weren't caused by something humans or even Daqin would carry. Esoteric he said? In their shared virtual space she'd pulled off the WW-ll inspired field cap and ran a hand gingerly through her golden hair. The thing didn't sit well between her horns, to begin with. But the gesture only seemed to suit the situation as things just steadily worsened.

A fucking unicorn? Once again the Ox took the words out of her mouth. a warning crackled inside of her helmet as the... the thing shot fucking lightning at Jun!

"What the absolute fuck is going on! Are we just on one massive drug trip? Did someone spike our virtual space to make us as high as all the hells combined? Mother be damned! I will wring her neck if we get out of this alive!" Her gun, still loaded, and in hand snapped apart as Jun essentially mag dumped into whatever it was. Oh, she knew if she were anything less and threatened the Empress of their people with violence and potentially murder it'd end poorly.

But then again the sisters' mom just sent them to this planet. Following suit, the dragon princess skipped backward when the warning came in. She aimed. But not at its head, not even center mass. But whatever it called its legs. The rifle cracked in a short staccato of burst fire. Not full auto. Considering the situation going murderhobo on the weird as hell thing like the Cow just did would save her precious time from having to reload so soon.

 

[Noodles]

"I'm going to kill her myself if that thing didn't already do it for me."

Dai located her co-worker and instinctively sought to put herself between the 'unicorn' and the Chongwu- while drawing the pistol she had tucked away in her medical bag. She was not prepared to run directly into combat- but she was prepared to protect herself, "Try not to shoot kill it into too many pieces! We could collect some fantastic samples off of that... thing. Or blow it up, or whatever. It's not important!"

 

[Ray of Meep]

Wen instinctively leaped aside, stone blasting into fragments as electricity arced past Jun. Their grip on the shared virtuality warbled and wavered with interference as the creature landed on long, spindly legs. Turning its head, its faceted eyes peered out on stalks, pointing at Jun as her active camouflage pigments struggled to adapt to the near lightning strike!

The fact that the monster was an alien that disguised itself as a unicorn would've wrangled Wen's mind further, if he wasn't overwhelmed with adrenaline as he barely dodged the arc of plasma sent in his direction. He panted heavily, letting instincts take over. While he was a Daqinren with much better bionetics compared to that of the average human space, he was no foot soldier, instead an officer trained to micromanage voidcraft systems. Fighting an alien monster that could fire plasma arcs from its setae was a little too much for him.

His body decided that he needed to get behind the creature before it locked eyes with him. Thus, his legs moved on their own, making quick, powerful thrusts against the ground to push him forward, dashing and sliding around the creature. While his body worked on its own, Wen had enough presence of mind to switch to auto-aim with his gun and arms, marking the insectoid as a hostile, then letting his onboard computers to work his aim for him as he tried to gather enough rational thought to figure out how to effectively neutralize it. Thus, his trigger finger twitched automatically, gyrojets flying towards the underside of the monster, where the computer identified was a likely weak spot.

 

[CadetNewb]

The projection on the wall of their tent base zoomed in on the creature for dramatic effect, but it was something that was wasted in the heat of the moment. Like another set of eyes, they could all see out of their weapon optics. Like a stray thought intruding into their minds, the initial targeting data and firing solution streamed through the little computer built into their weapon and into their consciousness. Their wills refined the aim, and pulled the mental trigger, their command signals streaming back down their arms and into their weapons.

SCREEEEEEEEEE!!!

The air tingled as the creature crackled, pseudohairs standing up on end as the imperial soldiers fired. Tracers leaped at the insectoid menace, only for it to suddenly dazzle their eyes as electricity arced! Like mosquitos flying into the zapper, their munitions exploded as they neared, peppering the creature with metal fragments that in turn flashed and burned. But the rounds coming in low from Koyama and Wen quickly riddled its legs with holes and gutted the creature, bringing it low.

With a blast, Jun's rocket propelled grenade flew in and vanished in a fireball. The headless corpse fell to the ground with a hard thunk as its exoskeleton met stone. A long silence seemed to descend as the static cleared and their bandwidth returned.

"Ara, ara," a muffled voice spoke up in their virtual command tent. Lifting up the lid of a nearby supply crate, a woman with feathered tufts and long, black hair greeted them with her hazel eyes. "That was a lot faster than I expected," she admitted.

 

[Uso]

Jun was scrambling to reload her weapon when she heard Sakamoto speaking,

"OK Come out here and lets go!" Jun shouted in virtuality. "If we don't escape NOW we're going to get asked to do some second or third thing and we'll be stuck here and..."

Jun looked at Sakamoto for a good, long, moment.

"... this BITCH" She said, anger in her voice, "We have to save HER!? After all she's done!"

"..." Jun thought about her options for a moment. She DID need Sakamoto to live for her to become a princess.

"Fuck... We have to save her."

 

[Ray of Meep]

"I agree with the dumb cow on this. We need to get you out of here." Wen added with a huff. He couldn't see the Rooster-form in meatspace, but the shared virtual reality pointed him in her direction. He ignored the indicator for now.

He mentally clicked his close quarter firearm routine to stand down, which allowed him to relax his arms. "Still, there's a bit of work to be done before we leave."

In virtual space, he got to work processing the footage and data collected by the whole team, getting a rough understanding of what just happened. Meanwhile, he walked around the alien corpse and knelt down to examine the remains, one finger still ready to fire his weapon and blast apart anything that moved. He kept himself at a safe distance that allowed him to react in time, while he let his sensors take a sweep of the tissue and remaining body form.

"Large arthropod that's larger than anything we've catalogued in our data banks, with an electrical organ that can attack, and reflexes to shoot bullets out of the air..." He turned to Wu and Dai. "Are either of you biologists who can make sense of what we just had to deal with?"