Shinka Knights IC

[Koishi]

Jungle

---

The arrow impacted into one of Merihem's many eyes. It grunted, though it kept going, slapping the fox tengu away with one of it's forearms, beofring rearing up at Seki, attempting to crush her.

Baphomet noticed the whizz of the arrow, and moved his leg in time, impacting into the ground in front of him. He went for an overhead swing of his sword, Soane deflecting it to the side and firing a point-blank round into Baphomet, stumbling him back, burning his chest slightly, though it began to heal itself. She followed this with two more shots, the second connecting as well, though the third missed, due to Baphomet punching her in the gut, knocking the breath, and aim out of her, along with almost knocking her to the ground.

Baphomet thrust forward, Soane's shortsword meeting him halfway as it was stopped. The screeches of metal ensued, hits coming from both so fast that it seemed like a single continuous, grating noise. Soane then thrust forward, Baphomet intercepting it, but then she pulled back quickly, another bullet fired, this time at his head.

Baphomet's head cocked back, before coming back down to look at Soane. The wound regenerated. But that, Soane knew. She took the chance, slashing at Baphomet's body several times, cleaving through flesh and metal, before ending with a kick, knocking Baphomet back and to the ground.

"When can't you see that this is pointless?" Baphomet said in an increasingly angry tone, getting up. His wounds were regenerating, of course, but due to the many wounds, it was a bit slower.

"Brothers! Heed my call!" Baphomet yelled. He was responded with the sound of Tainted roaring, bursting from the brush, surrounding the two of them.

"Until next time. If there is one." Baphomet said, turning and walking away, Tainted quickly filling the gap and charging towards Soane.

[bookdragon2000]

Jungle-Sunset

Nisen observed the fight from his perch directly above them on the trees. There seemed to be a fight between a tainted and his two targets as well as a tainted and another tengu. But the latter tainted seemed..."Developed, I've never heard of such an advanced tainted, to even seem to have a consciousness..." Sonia mused into his ear as he watched that humanoid tainted retreat. Nisen then turned his attention to his targets, the other tengu was of no concern to him. He held his wrist in front of him where he could see it and loosened a blade from its sheath, pointing at the tainted attacking his two targets, inquiring whether he should interfere. "Don't they should be fine considering how they broke into West star and even nearly managed to shake you off, your mission remains the same." Nisen nodded, then continued to observe.

[Kristia]

Jungle-Sunset


Kris didnīt expect the almost bone crushing tackle as she flew towards a tree, the hit got the air out of her lungs as she tried to hold herself. The tengu quickly focused back on the issue and ran towards the monster as more came because of the humanoidīs call ("This isnīt a fight, we must run from away before a massacre starts") she thought using whatever to find her partnerīs location.

A tainted nearly got her as she stopped on her tracks, the tainted claws grazed her arm and made a scratch on the armor, the fox didnīt hesitate and slashed the creature with her poisoned claws. She remembered that there was another person fighting these new tainted forms and she was sure that the moko followed, so she yelled with all her strength "If we want to survive, we must run! these arenīt mere creatures!"

[Tewi_Inaba]

Jungle l Sunset

As the tainted creature attempted to crush Seki she jumped backwards using a small burst of fire to quickly propel herself out of harms way. She held her composer as she slid backwards and aimed Lucy once more. She head the gun steady using impressive strength and gun control and fire three seperat times. The charged bullets rushed towards the creature all in a row, and immediately upon contact, the they ammo wouuld self destruct in a powerful display of fire. This didn't kill the beast however the blast was more than enough to knock it down for a while.

"If we want to survive, we must run! these arenīt mere creatures!" called Kris. Upon hearing this, Seki charged her lower torso armor and dashed towards her Tengu partner at nearly twice her normal running speed, ll the whil e leaving a trail of flame behind her. She swapped put her rifle for her twin blades which she had sheethed on her sides, and in a brilliant flurry of movements quick enough to escape a human eye, she mowed down creature after creature until she reached her Tengu counterpart.

Without warning or hesitation, Seki lifted Kris onto one of her shoulders with one arm and ran off with her. She dodged the oncoming horde of undead. She ran up to a large tree, and almost effortlessly scailed it using nothing but her feet and legs. Upon reaching the top of the tree, the girl leaped into the air, propelling herself even higher by using the flames under her feet to launch herself. Seki dropped the full quiver of arrows she had brought for Kris from her inventory and struck the quiver with a flaming bullet from one of her sidearms. (one of her pistols) The quiver was set a blaze, and before it reached the ground, Kris's arrows went off one by one in a sequence of explosions and flash bangs while spreading Kris's pheromones across that area of the jungle. It wasn't long before the commotion caused a wild fire. Between the smoke, the many flash bangs, dark night sky, and all the falling trees, it would have been extreamly difficult to keep track Seki and Kris as they seemingly vanished from the sky during the many explosions.


Jungle/N.W. l Sunset

"Don't forget who you're dealing with" Brooks said to assure Jason he would be alright. Brooks accepted Jason's hand and the two made their way to the chopper some tainted had returned to the area, however they were ignoring the Infecta and headed towards anouther part of the Jungle. Brooks and Jason could see smoke on the horizon as the chopper lifted them off the jungle floor and prepared to take them home. The chaotic and annoyingly long day had taken it's toll on everyone it seemed, but tomorrow would be a new day.

[Kristia]

Jungle l Sunset


Kris looked at how her arrows exploded from light, gas, fire and so on with al her combinations ("Well, I needed to test the explosive arrows") she thought while baing held by the infecta fire girl. She took one of Sekiīs fire arms just in case of an oncoming threat

Seeing that there was no dangeer at her surroundings, the tengu used her other senses , but it was the same rsult. "There is no more danger, you can put me down" she spoke to her friend

[bookdragon2000]

Jungle l Sunset

Nisen learning from the flashbang from before, did not bother attempting to follow the duo's movements with his own eyes. Instead he relied on the camera's relaying information to Sonia and closed his eyes to maintain his vision. Listening to the coordinates relayed to him from Sonia, he constructed a mental map in his mind from memory and quickly escaped from the area of the blaze before opening his eyes and heading towards the duo's position. He briefly wandered if he could observe them from afar, whether his presence would be detected, but quickly gave up on that, the density of the foliage as well as the surrounding sounds caused by the creatures would render long range surveillance equipment near useless. He had to take the risk of personally being on scene.

He quickly arrived near the location the duo should have landed at and soon found them, but reflecting on his other idea of using distance to hide his presence, he climbed much higher and looked down upon them, at where his own sharp senses could barely keep track of them, if even this failed to hide his presence, well, he would have to resort to the back-up plan.

[Koishi]

Jungle

---

Soane was exhausted. Physically and mentally. But she had to go on. The brush fire had cut off many of the Tainted, and she used the opportunity to flee. She had essentially cleaved through an army today. A sputtering, drooling, partially dead army, but an army nevertheless. Her muscles ached, and her shortsword had gotten many notches today.

Eventually, she arrvied at her small house, built into a treetop to avoid Tainted on the ground. She ate a small dinner, and cleaned her blade and gun. She wondered whether some divine entity had cursed her. Or loved her, depending on how you looked at it. Intelligent Tainted. She laughed at herself for the weirdness of today. And then she lied down on her cot and fell into a deep slumber.

[S121]

Jungle/N.W. l Sunset

As Jason stared out into the horizon, he thought about the mission today. It was indeed a difficult one, but everyone survived, and that was all that mattered to Jason. After a couple of seconds, Jason turned his attention away from the horizon and towards reloading his weapons, ensuring each one was fully loaded. Despite the fact that the mission was over, Jason was still prepared for the unexpected, a habit he had formed during his time on Earth, back when he was in the army. The only time he was willing to relax was back at base, his home. At least there he didn't need to worry about every single race on this planet wanting the Infecta dead, though that was probably just a false sense of security. At any moment, they could be attacked, so Jason had to be ready.

Jason was silent for a good few minutes as he reloaded his weapons, checked them for damages, and placed them back on their magnetic holsters, but after that, he finally looked at Brooks and broke the silence.

"You doing alright?", Jason calmly asked Brooks as he leaned back and showed the smallest traces of relaxing.

[Tewi_Inaba]

On root to base l Early night

Brooks had been staring out the Chopper window as the sun set behind the mountains, shinning it's gentle light upon the rivers until it vanished from the sky, leaving behind the darkness. He didn't bother answering Jason's question and instead brought up a more important topic. "This whole thing was a scam." Brooks finally turned to face Jason now that the sky had gone black and there was nothing to gain from looking out the window. "Someones gone to great lengths to cover up their motives. Once we get back to base, tell the recon unit to do a thorough serch of the base to check for cameras and wire taps, I don't want any stone left unturned. I'm going to do an inventory check to see if anything was stolen. We'll give artifact to Cooper, hopefully it will give s some answers."

Death Vally l Night

Seki had arrived at the tainted land she called home. It was a harsh place to live, but Seki had managed to survive there for almost a year by herself. After hearing what the Tengu had to say, Seki would respond with a soft giggle and a sly remark. "Aww but but i wanted to carry you off into the sunset like in one of those bad romance movies on earth." She paused ther and dramatically looked away while holding her arm to her forehead. she spoke again in a way that made it clear she was only kissing. "Oh my poor little broken heart." ... *sniff sniff* ... Seki sniffed the air for a moment. She couldn't identify exactly what it was, but there was a presence there that was neither her or Kris, nor the tainted. It could have been a wild animal but she wasn't about to take any chances. "i'll put you down in a moment." she muttered as she crouched down for a moment before taking off again. She ran quickly as she could into the forest of tainted land, bypassing many a creature without disturbing a single being, maybe the duo were covered in some kind of pheromone, or maybe Seki had found a way to tame some of the tainted. Whatever the case they would have been out of range within seconds if Nisen didn't do anything. The only question was between Seki and Nisen, who was more stubborn?

[Kristia]

On root to base l Early night


The tengu laughed with Sekiīs dramatic scene "Come one firecracker, you know I still love you" she said patting her friendīs back. Then there was that faint scent again as the infecta started running towards their base.

Kris looked at the scenery for anything that didnīt match from the normal, what she did know was the possibility of the same chaser so she muttered while still having the side arm ready ust in case "Probably the moko who followed me, he isnīt the normal scout or assassin because of how he managed to follow me. He has either wind or speed abilities as he ran at extreme speed covering his scent all over an area to confuse the tainted."

[bookdragon2000]

Death Valley-Night

Nisen chased after the two into the forest, jumping from tree to tree silently without alerting the tainted, but due to having to remain stealthy, he was rapidly losing ground on the duo. Sonia had quickly assessed the situation and contacted Nisen, "There doesn't seem to be any point hiding now, this doesn't seem to be precautions, they really must have had a way to detect you. So here is the change in plan..."

Nisen listened and acknowledged the plan, then he dropped to the ground and activating the wind crystal, sped after the duo. He ran along the path the duo had crossed, not caring about the tainted he was disturbing. Within a few seconds, he was within a hundred meters of the duo. When he could easily keep track of them without losing sight occasionally due to the foliage, he drew out his two wrist blades and threw them each at Seki's legs. He doubted that he would connect, but the purpose was to halt them not kill them. Not yet anyway.

[S121]

On root to base l Early night

"Right.", Jason said to Brooks as he looked out the window.

Jason may not have been able to see anything outside the window, but right now, he simply needed something to focus on so that he could think about what had happened today. To be honest, Jason had no idea what anyone would try to cover up. What was there to cover up, and even if they were trying to cover something up, what would they hope to gain by stirring up the Tainted. There were vary few that were insane enough to deal with the Tainted. After all, the Tainted not only posed a threat to the Infecta, they also posed a threat to Ragnarok as well. Surely nobody on either side would risk inflaming them and risking the survival of their own faction, right?

After a couple more seconds, Jason turned towards Brooks and spoke.

"Surely Ragnarok would not resort to inflaming the Tainted and risking their own faction, would they? Neither would we... It's not logical that Ragnarok would use something so dangerous. They hate the Tainted just as much as we do... Something just doesn't add up. Neither we, nor Ragnarok would do something like this.", Jason said to Brooks, trying to find the answer to their current mystery, trying to reveal who the culprit was.

[Kristia]

Death Valley-Night

Kris noticed the oncoming knives and fired the side arm to them "We got our follower" she warned to the infecta as she carried the tengu

The fox fired to the source of the knives as she didn't have any arrow, only her bow

[Koishi]

Baphomet's Lair

---

Baphomet returned to his lair, set deep inside a cave system, in the dead of night. His minions gathered up the corpses of those who died in the battles today, both from each other, and his own pawns, along with the corpses of Tainted as well. They would soon be converted, their biomass used to create new Tainted. Baphomet had been experimenting with the bounds of the taint, the limits. There was so much potential, and all he needed was the right bit of biomass for everything to work.

The interior of the cave he walked through was almost completely tainted, tendrils spreading through the floor. He and his followers could see everything down here. If someone came in, the entire swarm would know. It was perfect. And with today's gains, it would soon get better. He looked upon the network of tunnels, Tainted scurrying along quickly and with singular purpose.

Yes, it will soon be better.

[Tewi_Inaba]

Death Vally l Night

Seki had known about the boy's presence even before the Tengu had alerted her. After all she had left the assassin with the options of either losing them in the chase, or coming out to fight. Actually she had hoped for this outcome. As the Moko's blade flew towards Seki's leg, the infecta quickly tossed the Tengu she had been carrying up into the air where she could attack as she saw fit, while flipping backwards over the Moko's blade. Seki was in mid air, horizontaly facing the Moko. Burst of fire came from Seki's feet and launched her towards the moko like a rocket. She quickly drew her blades as she flew towards him, aiming her right blade in such a way that iit would remove the boys head if he did nothing to stop it, while gaurding her own body from attack with the blade in her left hand. The posibility of him escaping both Seki's and Kris's sight was slim, and the posibility of defeating them in a fight was much slimmer.

Nearing the Infecta base l Night time

As Brooks and Jason peeked out the window of the chooper it wasn't long before they saw a light again, along with the familiar sight of their home. "We'll be landing shortly" the pilot said. Brooks looked at the pilot and nodded before returnning his his gaze to the window. He had listened to Jason's explonation and he agreed with him, It did seem unlikely that Ragnarok would do any of this, it simply went against their military's style and reputation. "If what i suspect is true, Ragnarok was probably a victim in this as well. After speaking with the Recon unit that got attacked, we can confirm that SHE played a hand in this."