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Krystal and Chase: Iron Sight

Part two: The Assault

With Chase keeping an eye on the bots from the store, Krystal crawled behind a ruined wall, moving slowly so she did not attract the attention of the Reapers now scouring the area. Keeping low to the ground, the vixen had her rifle strapped to her back along with her sniper rifle. Instead of using them, Chase had given her one of the new arm blades he had been carrying. Now, she could easily cut apart a bot up close and personal if it attacked her, although she would have preferred the powerful staff she had used before being captured on Sauria. Thinking about it, the vixen sighed, missing the versatile weapon.

"Beggars can't be choosers." She reminded herself as the vixen peeked around a corner, "Besides, my staff would be hard to carry with both the sniper rifle and the heavy assault rifle on my back with it."

She was in luck. The Reapers hadn't noticed her yet, focusing on finding out what happened to their fellow bot instead with a few examining the surrounding area. But as the vixen moved towards another section of rubble, she noticed that one of the Reapers had a blood red stripe across it's back and left shoulder. The others were simply their metallic gray coloration.

"Something is probably different about that one." Krystal thought to herself, "No time to figure it out now though."

* * *

Watching Krystal as she crawled towards the building, Chase took a few seconds to check on the Reapers that had replied to the screech. Pulling his sniper rifle off his back, the fox sighted in the odd one that had come out of the building last, placing it's flattened head in his crosshairs. Using the window to steady the rifle, Chase kept careful track of each bot. Every nerve in his body was screaming for him to pull the trigger and eliminate the bot. But his mind kept calm, waiting for Krystal to move to safety first before he removed the robot's head from its shoulders with a supersonic bullet. Even with the primal rage wanting to surge back into him, the fox's concern for his partner was too strong for it.

But then, something else caught his eye. In a top floor window in the building Krystal was moving to, was a shadowy form. Slowly, Chase moved the rifle scope up to the window. But when it got there, the figure was gone.

Activating the channel between him and Krystal, the fox repositioned the rifle scope on the bot again.

"Krystal, you might want to be careful in there." Chase said quietly, "I think I saw a Ghost unit."

"Those things from the outpost? Alright, I'll keep my eyes open." Krystal replied in an equally quiet voice.

Chase nodded and carefully placed the odd Reaper's head in his crosshairs. The bots were starting to get suspicious, moving around more and looking for the source of their fellow Reaper's demise. Clearly, the Reapers software had been upgraded for a more wolf pack style of hunting since their last face off.

"As long as Krystal stays low and doesn't move to fast, she should be alright." Chase thought, keeping the bot in his crosshairs.

A few tense moments later, Krystal called in, saying that she was inside the building and moving up to an upper floor. Chase smiled and slowly squeezed the trigger.

The armor piercing bullet exploded out of the end of the barrel with a flash of fire, twirling forward at supersonic speeds before striking its target. As the round penetrated the Reaper's head, the bot never knew what hit it. In less than a quarter of a second, the stillness that had just resettled over the colony was shattered as the now headless robot thrashed before crumpling to the ground, the gunshot echoing through the air.

The remaining Reapers focused on the source of the shot, finding Chase hiding in a mostly destroyed building. But before they could make their move, the fox fired another round. A second bot went down, a hole in the front of it's chest and a much large hole in the back where the shot had exited.

With a furious screech, the third Reaper bolted sideways before Chase could bring his rifle sights to bear on it. The bot raised it's arm cannon and opened fire, it's multi-barrel cannon rotating quickly as the golden streaks of energy pummeled the wall behind where Chase had been. The second the bot had moved, Chase had ducked down just in time. Now he kept low as the bot continued to pump round after round of energy based destruction into the building, another Reaper joining into the fight.

"I guess this means they still haven't noticed Krystal's not here." Chase thought quietly as he drew his pistols, "Time to do it myself then, I guess."

But as the fox raised a handgun to begin firing, one of the Reapers lost it's arm cannon, a bullet having cut through it. A split second later, the thunderous crack of a sniper rifle sounded off right before another bullet brought the bot down with a shot through it's back. The second shot sounded off as the remaining bots spread out, trying to figure out where the ghost shots had come from.

Taking advantage of the situation, Chase moved slowly to the doorway, poking his Stinger out before firing a three round burst that cut down another Reaper. As the robots scrambled, the fox ran out of the general store and into the building Krystal had entered not a few seconds ago. But unlike his partner, the Reapers noticed him!

Chase rounded the corner of the doorway as the bots targeted him and began to open fire. Just as Chase slipped around the corner, their rounds pummeling the wall behind the doorway. Chase moved away from it as the robots continued to fire their deadly hail of energy rounds, his heart pounding in both excitement and fear.

But to his surprise, he found Krystal still on the ground floor by the staircase, just now loading her sniper rifle after slinging her S-32 onto her back.

"If she's here...then who fired those shots?" the fox wondered as he tapped hr shoulder.

Krystal looked at him, her emerald eyes wide with surprise. Before she could ask anything, Chase motioned to the stairs. With a nod, the vixen followed him up them, the Reapers outside still attacking the front entry. But, as they advanced up the stairs, several more shots were heard, a loud screech from the Reaper units soon following it as their numbers dwindled.

Judging from how loud the shots had been, Krystal guessed that whoever else was in the colony had taken up a position higher up in the building they were now in. Slipping her sniper rifle back onto her back, the vixen pulled her assault rifle to her shoulder, inserting a half spent magazine back into it. When she had, the vixen smirked quietly, feeling better now that she was better armed for close quarters combat.

Chase nodded as he holstered his Stingers and slung his sniper rifle on his back. To his partner's amazement, the fox grabbed the handle of one of his arm blades, pulling it quietly out of its sheath and strapping it to his arm. The blade glinted in the sunlight that was poking in through destroyed sections of the building.

"Alright, stay behind me and make sure those bots don't get behind us." Chase ordered.

"Don't worry; I'll keep your tail safe." Krystal replied with a playful smirk.

Krystal followed Chase, being careful to stay behind him as the fox advanced up the stairs to the floor where the shots had come from. Being careful not to let whoever it was know they were there, Chase glanced around each corner before advancing up to the next floor. Luckily, the concrete stairwell was still mostly intact, despite a few crumbling supports below.

* * *

Once they had reached the top floor, the two heard another shot fire off. Chase motioned for Krystal to keep her sights over his shoulders. If whoever it was decided to try to take them down, Krystal would have to take the shot to stop them.

Walking slowly along the corridor, Krystal focused, activating her telepathy once more. Once she had picked up the activity of a third mind on the floor, the vixen pointed to a doorway near the end of the hall. Chase nodded, understanding clearly what she meant. Whoever was shooting the bots below was behind that door.

Unfortunately, the door to the room was closed. Chase placed his hand on the door's handle, slowly turning it so the mechanism didn't make too much noise. But as the fox opened the door, he found the barrel of an energy weapon pointed right at his nose, the weapon charging. Behind it was a tigress, the look in her eyes anything but surprised.

"I had a feeling you two would show up sooner or later." She said, keeping the weapon trained on Chase, and then she looked at Krystal. Her experience was telling her that the one with the blade was the more dangerous threat.

"Lower it." The tigress ordered Krystal.

Krystal did with a disheartened sigh. The vixen had thought for sure that she and Chase would have had the drop on this sniper. But apparently, the tigress had already known they were coming. For now, she would do as the sniper said. She couldn't risk Chase being shot; despite the fact that she knew well that Chase's shield could handle it. One shot from that blaster, and the next would finish him off.

Suddenly, Chase moved! Using something Bianca had taught him, Chase quickly dropped down under the barrel of the energy weapon, slashing upward quickly to knock it out of the tigress's hands. In surprise, the tigress recoiled, pulling the weapon away as Chase struck.

Krystal reacted to Chase's strike quickly, grabbing the end of the gun and twisting it, wrenching the deadly weapon so it pointed away from any of them. With a quick rabbit punch to her side, the vixen was able to force the tigress to release the blaster without discharging it. With that, Krystal quickly turned the gun around, pointing the deadly weapon back at the tigress as she was kneeled before them, her breath having been knocked from her lungs.

"Now, who are you and why are you here?" Chase asked.

The tigress looked up at them, "Call tag Echo One. And why I'm here is none of your business."

"Are you with the Sev`fel?" Krystal asked.

"After what they did to my home colony?" the tigress snapped, "Why would I help those murderers?"

"So you're here to eliminate them as well." Chase nodded, "Ronin-2, give her back her gun. We may need her."

Krystal handed Echo One the energy weapon with an untrusting glare. Usually, Krystal would have given her the benefit of the doubt, but after the sniper had pointed her gun at Chase with the intention of shooting him, the vixen simply could not trust her yet. Echo One stood back up, understanding the glare clearly.

"So who are you two?" The tigress asked.

"I'm Ronin-1 and this is Ronin-2." Chase replied, "We're here to remove the Sev`fel bots for good."

"Then we are in similar interest." Echo one said, "I guess that means it would be in both our interests to work together."

Chase nodded when a loud, metallic cry suddenly went up! Echo One holstered her blaster and pulled her sniper rifle to her shoulder, removing scope quickly as Krystal raised her assault rifle.

"Looks like they know we're here." Chase said, drawing his Stinger, "For now, we work together."

Echo One nodded as Chase glanced down at the square they had just come through. With a groan, the fox saw that the Sev`fel had just cut down their chances of survival.

* * *

More Reapers had gathered outside. The gray bots floated, communicating with one another through short commands and complex algorithms transmitted through a wireless WLAN interface. As long as the bots stayed within a few hundred feet of each other, they could issue commands and responses to one another without interruption. Further out, they had to call the others closer if assistance was required.

Right now, however, many of the Reapers had been tied into the newest model of Reaper units, the red striped Reapers that lead each squad. With all of the communication routing through that leader, the Reapers were able to issue commands that could be relayed to each bot at once in a star LAN topology, instead of sending it between bots one by one, as in a peer-to-peer network. The effect was more useful to them in case a bot was lost, as well as quicker.

Further back, the scorpion-like units moved quickly, cutting off any possible exit from the square. According to their logical software, this was the ideal way to eliminate the intruders. No escape route was left open as the new, scorpion-like units climbed over the walls, leaping from rooftop to rooftop as they got into position. Several short-ranged sensors had picked up the three intruders shortly after the shots had stopped, triangulating their exact position. Now, the bots had the upper hand.

* * *

"We fire now, and they'll be all over us in seconds." Krystal said, looking down over the bots that had gathered in the square, "Anyone have a plan?"

Chase leaned against a wall, pulling out his Stingers, "Ronin-2, we still have those EMP grenades right?"

Krystal nodded, taking one off of her belt, "Here."

Chase smirked and took it, tossing it up once and catching it, "Perfect. We send a couple of these into that mass and it should disperse it pretty quickly."

Krystal nodded and looked back to the mass outside, training her sights onto one of the strange Reapers with the red stripe. She had already formulated a plan. According to what she was seeing, these red striped Reapers were able to control the others, much like a squad leader.

From her experiences during the Apariod war, the vixen knew that if she wanted to cause short, but effective, confusion, her best bet was to remove the leader. Luckily, the bots were spread out enough that she could easily see which ones were these leaders. The vixen counted up ten of them, each one leading ten other reapers. One hundred ten Reapers total.

"What about taking out those strange ones first?" Krystal asked, "They seem to be in charge."

Chase looked out, seeing what Krystal meant, "Good idea. Focus your fire on those red striped ones first, then. Then see about those scorpion-like ones."

"You mean the apariod-like ones?" Krystal asked.

"I'm telling you, I don't think those things are apariod." Chase replied, "But, we can argue about that later. Right now, just let me set a few surprises for any guests that might come in."

Before Krystal could reply, Chase was already moving down the stairs. The vixen sighed and turned back to her sights. Her worry could wait until after they got out of the building in one piece.

"After all, Chase has done this before, right?" She asked herself, "What could go wrong?"

"I like that name for them." Echo one said.

"What name?" Krystal asked in reply.

"Red Stripes." Echo one smirked, "Let's call them that."

Krystal nodded in agreement and looked back towards the stairs, waiting for Chase to return.

* * *

After reaching the ground floor, Chase searched a utility closet quickly, finding exactly what he was looking for. Twine, duct tape, and even a few weights and spare mechanical parts from the internal systems within the building. Common items that, when paired with a single EMP grenade, could spell disaster for any swarm of robots.

Careful not to expose himself, the fox fashioned a quick pulley system that, when tripped, would set off the EMP grenade, effectively rendering any bot in the hallway disabled. Setting it carefully so that the grenade was not exposed, the fox smiled to himself. He had placed the trip wire further from the grenade, that way when more bots were inside, he could eliminate more of them at one time. The idea was certainly old fashioned, but it had a strong record of success.

"If I didn't think this would work, I'd call myself insane." Chase thought to himself, setting up a second, similar trap near the stairs.

As he worked his way back up, Chase was careful to lay each grenade trap differently, including setting one to roll down the stairs before detonating. Pleased with his work, the fox returned to Krystal and Echo One.

* * *

When she heard Chase come back into the room, Krystal looked at him and saw his satisfied smirk. With a smile, the vixen knew Chase was ready for the bots.

"Ok, pick your targets and fire when ready." Chase said.

Krystal nodded and took careful aim, placing a Red Stripe's head in her crosshairs. Mentally, she went over the track she had laid out to eliminate each of the strange Reapers, hopefully sending the rest of the squad into slight confusion. It wouldn't be long, but it would be long enough for Echo One to take down some of the Scorpion-like units.

Krystal's finger slowly squeezed the trigger and, with a thunderous explosion of gases, fired the first shot. The bot fell almost instantly, it's head blown clean off as the round penetrated a second Reaper as well! Without hesitation, Echo One fired the second shot, forcing one of the scorpion-like units to fall from its perch on the store.

Just as Krystal had planned, the rest of the fallen leader's squad was confused, searching for a command that was no longer there. Instead, the other squads attacked, rushing towards the building in a frenzied swarm. But before they could even cross the square, Krystal had taken out another Red Stripe, sending it's squad into an unresponsive state for a few precious seconds while Echo One eliminated a few of them.

But as Krystal took aim at another squad leader, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. The vixen ducked as a green bolt of energy flew past where her head had been not a second earlier! The scorpion-like units had found them!

"Keep on those Red Stripes." Echo One growled, "I'll handle those scrapers."

Krystal nodded and removed another Red Stripe from the mass. Three down, seven to go.

Chase, however, was not simply content to watch as his partner and the tigress do all the work. He remembered where each of his trip-wires were laid, keeping an ear out for the sound of the crackle of an EMP detonation. Instead of sitting around though, Chase pulled a fragmentation grenade off his belt.

After pulling the pin and setting the grenade, the fox heaved the explosive device out a window. As it fell, Chase began firing his Stinger handguns out of the window beside Krystal. Within a few seconds, the fox saw his grenade burst just above the swarming bots, peppering a small group with deadly shrapnel. As they fell, the remaining bots attempted to swarm into the building. But, the girls were refusing to let the bots in that easily.

Krystal took out two more of the Red Stripes, her sniper rounds penetrating their heads as the bots attempted to lead their forces into the building. As the headless bots thrashed before crumpling to the ground, Echo One took out a third robot, piercing clean through it's chest armor and killing the bot behind it. But even with their combined firepower, the vixen and tigress were not enough to prevent the bots from getting inside.

* * *

As the two fired round after round of hot steel into the bodies of the advancing robotic units, a small squad managed to get inside. But they did not get far before they reached Chase's first trap. The first bot failed to scan the hallway effectively, only searching for an organic life-form instead of the trap it should have seen. Passing through the tripwire, an EMP grenade dropped down from above, primed to detonate on impact.

As the second bot moved by, the grenade dropped directly onto it's shoulder, sending a light blue shockwave through the rest of the squad! The EMP wave sent out by the grenade sent the circuitry inside each bot wild, overloading and effectively disabling the robots from the inside. Their internal systems shut down quickly as the bots lay in the hallway, unable to move.

* * *

Krystal was reloading when she hard the muffled 'WHUMP!' of an EMP detonation, the crackling of electricity soon following. The vixen smirked to herself, pushing a lock of blue hair away from her eyes as she retook aim out the window. Whatever Chase had done, it had worked for now. But as she took out the ninth Red Stripe, another burst of laser fire grazed her cheek, several more rounds pelting the wall around her window. The vixen dropped down quickly with a gasp of pain, cringing as the pain stung her cheek. As she did, the green bursts of energy struck the ceiling above her as the bots continued firing.

As Krystal tried to get up, she felt Chase put his hand on her shoulder.

"You ok?" he asked, firing another full clip of 9mm rounds into what as left of the horde.

"Yeah, I will be." Krystal replied as Chase handed her his gun.

"I'll take over." The fox said, "You make sure those things don't get in here."

Krystal didn't argue. Instead, the vixen sat against the wall, her cheek still hurting from the energy round that had cut across it. Touching it gingerly, the sting intensifying at her touch, the vixen was not surprised to find blood on her fingertips, her blood. Krystal knew that she had been lucky. If that round hadn't hit her cheek, the others would have hit her head directly, killing her.

Chase fired his Sniper rifle out the window, removing the offending scorpion-like unit with a well placed, armor piercing bullet. The bot toppled off the roof it had been on, falling behind it and out of sight as Chase sighted in another one. But as he squeezed the trigger, a Reaper sighted him in and opened fire with it's cannon!

The sudden appearance of the golden energy rounds caused Chase's shot to go wild, breaking a window instead of a bots head. The fox cursed under his breath and fired an instinctive shot at the bot, removing its chest from the rest of it's body. As he pulled back behind the wall, another 'WHUMP!' was heard. The fox smiled, realizing that a bot had been foolish enough to set off a second trap.

He glanced to the tigress who was shooting out the window beside him. As she fired another round, the fox smirked. Echo One was a good shot, having shot the arm cannon off of bot who was hiding behind a ruined wall. The ensuing damage to it's weaponry systems brought the bot out of hiding. As it rushed forward, the tigress pulled the trigger again, bringing the robot down.

"You're pretty good." Chase said as he killed another Reaper unit, spinning it around as the bullet caught its side, "So who trained you?"

Echo one fired again, cutting down another scorpion-like bot as it attempted to leap to another rooftop, "Who trained me? I trained myself, thank you very much."

"Really?" Well then, you did a good job of it." Chase smirked as he cut down another bot.

The tigress took a half second to look over Chase as he fired again, missing a Reaper but inuring it's comrade. Then she returned to her job, killing another couple of Reapers. But as she tried to take aim at a scorpion-like unit, she clicked the trigger uselessly.

"I'm out!" She called, pulling her rifle to her side as she spun back around the wall.

Chase followed suit, lowering himself below the window as more energy rounds poured through the window he had been shooting through.

"Ok, let's wait it out." Chase said as Krystal looked to him for an idea, "I've got a few more surprises for those things when they try to get in here. There should be two more traps they haven't set off. Once they have, we charge out of here and book it for the airfield."

"Good plan, but then what do we do?" Echo One asked, "This isn't the last of these things."

But as she said it, Chase was already contacting the carrier. When they responded, Chase smirked.

"Dagger, we need that toy now." The fox said, "And make sure the drop ship is prepped for a hot LZ. We have no idea how many of these things will be on it once they see it."

"Roger that Ronin, FAV drop ship is already out of the hangar and green light on all armaments. Expect pass over in three minutes." The female voice replied, "Sending final coordinates to your HUD now."

Chase nodded and looked to Echo One, "Guess I forgot to mention, we've got something we're going to show to the Sev`fel. I guarantee they will never forget it."

Krystal nodded and pulled her assault rifle to her shoulder, pointing it out the doorway. If anything so much as moved outside, three rounds would be pumped into it.

Suddenly, an arrow appeared right above Krystal's vitals on her HUD. It flashed a couple of times before Krystal realized that it was pointing out the window. As she moved, it moved as well, pointing out towards area where the scorpion-like units were still moving around.

"Ronin, why is this arrow pointing out to the bots?" Krystal asked.

"Because past them is the LZ for our support." Chase replied, "That's where we're going to run to once these bots set off the last two traps."

Suddenly, a soft 'WHUMP!' was heard from the second floor. Chase smirked, knowing that another set of bots was no longer a problem.

"Stay here." Chase said, "I'm going to check the final trap to be sure the bots didn't miss one."

Krystal nodded and rubbed her cheek gingerly as Chase drew his handguns.

* * *

Seeing the others of their fellow bots lying strewn up the stairwell, the few remaining Reapers that had entered the building were being cautious. Moving quickly, the robots scanned each stairwell carefully before advancing up to the building. Unfortunately for the bots, they failed to see the thin strand of twine that was across their path. If they had, the bots would have been able to notice the hanging EMP grenade well before the first bot tripped the wire.

Instead, the EMP fell down from above, rolling down two steps before rolling under the group of Reapers who had set off the trap. With a loud 'WHUMP!' the grenade detonated! The shockwave passed through each bot, disabling them from within. As they fell to the ground, piled on top of each other, the final bot saw a fox walking up to it. Then, its glowing eyes faded to black.

* * *

Seeing the bots fall from the EMP, Chase walked back up to the girls and told them that the Reapers were gone for now. But as he looked out the window, the fox noticed that the scorpion-like units were gone.

"Where'd they all go?" Chase asked as Krystal reloaded her HAR.

"Little freaks ran." Echo One replied, "They just suddenly leaped off the roofs and ran towards, if I'm remembering correctly, the old airfield."

Chase cursed suddenly, making sure both Stinger handguns were fully loaded, "Then we'd better hurry. If our drop ship is going to land there, we need to clear it as much as we can."

Krystal nodded and followed Chase, keeping close to him as Echo One followed them out of the building.

"Chase, what are we going to do about her?" Krystal asked quietly, being careful that Echo One didn't hear her.

"I guess we still need her." Chase replied, checking a corner before advancing down the stairwell, "After all, the FAV has four minigun turrets, and there are two of us. An extra gun is always handy."

Krystal nodded. While she agreed with Chase, the vixen still did not trust the tigress completely. If they got through this mission alive, then Krystal would think about trusting her. But as much as she did not trust Echo One, Krystal was still worried about Chase. Now, she was sure this colony and her partner had some kind of connection.

Chase, however, wasn't focused on the mission or on trust. All he could think of was the destruction he could wreak with the full power of the Frontal Assault Vehicle against the Sevfel. In his mind's eye, the fox could already see the Sevfel constructions going up in flames as bot after bot was sent into oblivion by the vehicles main gun. For each colonist killed that night, Chase was determined to make the Sev`fel pay in blood and oil for that massacre.

* * *

As the three moved on towards the airfield, something watched them from the shadows. It's glowing eyes studied them carefully, having watched as the three destroyed the Sev`fel robots. The units now lay motionless across the square, oil leaking from the holes that now sparked uselessly. With a low, metallic growl, it backed off for now, it's claws clicking softly as it moved over the rubble it had been hiding behind. It had it's orders.