Boss

Immediately After Drop…

She quickly shook herself off from the shockwave, bonking herself on the head a few times as she regained her bearings and looked out the pod's windows to get her bearings. She was spiraling, so, that wasn't fun, and made it more difficult to make out WHAT was going on, but eventually, she managed to get a good look of her trajectory. At the current trajectory, she'd clip this skyscraper, then dive straight into the ocean with enough velocity to carry her well below crushing depths for the pod...

Growling, she tried for the pod's reverse thrusters, but found all systems were out. quickly assessing her options, she looked out the window and saw she was coming close to the tower...

"Alright, that'll do... just gotta time this right..." She thought, punching all but one of the pressure releases, and began a mental countdown... before slamming her fist into the last release. After a small hiss, the time of which she took to collect her weapons, the door blew off, and she leapt out. before she could even think, she reflexively raised her arms to protect her face and upper body with her forearms as she slammed through the thick glass windows, and her force carried her through several more walls before she finally skid to a stop just short of fallout off the edge and plummeting to a clumsy, stupid death. Once she was finally at a stop, she let her head fall back as she laid on her back, looking straight up at the ceiling...

"Okay... That hurt..." She groaned, before some static came through over her radio...

"Hey, whoever is trying to contact me, switch to channel charlie 14 gamma, all I'm getting from your end is static!" She ordered, and immediately the static cleared up as the person on the other end changed channels.

"I said, Boss, what's your status? Are you within the city?" Ah, it was the captain. Cracking her neck, she reached a hand up to her helmet, and pressed the button so she could respond...

"Uhhhh, no, I'm actually, on a yacht in the Atlesian Ocean. With the Achieve Men."

"Uh... OMG? Send Pics?"

"No, Captain, I'm actually near the top of Sentinel Tower."

"No way, how'd you manage to get back so fast? The Atlesian Ocean is practically on the other side of the planet." The Captain joked, before Boss picked herself up and looked around.

"Nuts... I'm on floor 138, it looks like the elevators are out." She inched over, and opened the door, noting that all the cables were snapped. "Yep, all the elevators are definitely out."

"Well when you're done goofing off up there I need some help. I landed on the ground, my pod is jammed. Pressure release failed, I need another hand." His voice came over her radio, making her sigh lightly.

"Ugh, did I... do something wrong? Because the only thing I regret, about you and me, not knowing you were a big atlesian military spook when we first met. Would've come off as a lot less charming." Boss said as she stood upright, cracking her back as her aura slowly healed.

"That's what I miss most about you, Boss. Your mouth moves about twenty times faster than your brain. look, I can't apologize for my job, we both agreed to end it, don't you remember?"

"That was years ago, I'm a little fuzzy on the-" She cracked her back properly, "-details. Must've met a lot of other clones since then, why choose ME for this mission?"

"Boss, you're the best trooper I know of, and you remember that night, at Baleful Ridge, what you asked me?"

"I remember you not giving me an actual answer..." Boss murmured under her breath, before seeing several Empire gunships fly around the area her HUD showed the captain to have landed.

"What was that, Boss? You're breaking up-"

"I said stay put, I'm on my way!" She declared, before darting for the stairwell...

She was able to make it down about twenty floors before the rest was cut off from a raging fire. She growled, ducking into the main floor of the level she was on, whipping her XA-25S back and forth, before ultimately deciding the floor was free of hostiles. Still, it wouldn't do to be caught off guard, Raven's lessons had drilled home that point. Never let your guard down, the difference between your death and your enemy's often fell down to who got the drop on who, and while her death was ultimately inevitable to redeem her kind, right now, there was someone depending on her, and she'd be damned if she'd let anything stop her from saving him.

After a few seconds, she found a hole in the ground. Heavy ordinance from the enemy fleet made this happen, but it opened a pathway for her. Four floors blown through, each one a raging inferno except where it stopped. Cracking her neck, she jumped down, letting her aura tank the fall as she landed. Though, as soon as she hit the ground, it gave way, crashing through and falling down another two floors.

Staying surefooted as she fell with the floor, she crouched down as she came to a halt, allowing the force to fade away with it. Looking up, she noted a few targets, all wearing the enemy's uniform... and it looked like they were setting charges... They're going to blow the tower!

Snapping her gun up, she let rip into her still-stunned enemies, cutting them down without any remorse or mercy, before snapping around the corner and cutting down another handful of shocked enemies, and getting to work on disabling the charges. There was an Atlesian armored column on the streets below. If they blew the tower, the debris would wreak havoc on them... but then she looked at the floor below through a hole in the ground, only to see more charges...

"These charges are set to blow on a timer... I don't have enough time to disable all these charges, I have to get down to the ground before they blow, and warn our comrades." She decided, and slid down the debris wall onto the lower floor, cutting down another three soldiers and racing to the end of the hall. Stopping at the stairwell, she pressed herself against the wall next to the door, and listened to the footsteps.

With a nod, she drew her knife with her left hand, took it in an underhanded grip, extended her upper arm horizontal to her shoulders pressed against the wall, and straightened out her forearm, letting the running man impale his throat on her knife with just a little assistance, before coming around and shoulder-bashing him off and over the railings of the stairs.

Looking around a bit, she saw that three floors down, the stairs weren't on fire. Holstering her guns, she set herself on the railing, and dived down, just barely slipping through the doorway on that not-on-fire-floor three levels down and breaking into a roll as she landed. Rising to her feet, she drew her XA-22M from her him, precisely blasting each of the five targets in the head as she came up. Sprinting forward, she dug her foot into the floor as she slid, leveling the gun down the hall she was turning into... only for her gun to get slapped out of her hand.

Acting on reflex, she ducked back, just narrowly dodging a slash from her opponent's knife. Throwing herself back, she drew her knife and stood in a ready stance after putting some distance between herself and her opponent. Her opponent was far bigger than her, quite possibly taller than 6'6", and massive in terms of sheer muscle. She'd have to play this carefully, one wrong move and he'd have prime opportunity to straight up physically overpower her.

He made the first move, stabbing diagonally, forcing her to duck back, before flipping his knife's grip around and slashing horizontally at her neck. Quickly, she ducked under the attack, but before she could retaliate, he pressed his advantage, as she realized she was cornered. She used her left to push his knee off, but just as she did, he forced her to duck further into the corner as he went to stab for her head, ramming his knife into the wall she had herself pressed against. Just as she was where he wanted, he pressed his advantage by forcing himself to fall on top of her, using his spare hand to pin her arm holding the knife to the ground.

Grinning under her mask, she smiled as this soldier had unintentionally given her exactly what she wanted. As she rested pinned to a piece of debris that her head hung just over, she drew her head back, used her offhand to grab his uniform and force him closer, before ramming her head forward. With that, he recoiled as she broke his nose, who used his momentary weakness to toss her knife to the hand that wasn't still pinned, forced her forearm up and over her head, pushing his knife off course and making his stab the floor just over her head, before ramming her knife forward, stabbing straight through his through, and cleanly severing his vertebrae, making him go limp.

Shoving his dying form off of herself, she pulled a handkerchief out of his picket, and used it to wipe the blood off her visor, before using it to wipe the blood off her knife and throwing the piece of cloth onto the dying man's face.

"You clearly weren't a run of the mill soldier, so I'm gonna guess you were one of your boys' equivalent of a hunter or huntress... Fortunately for me, I'm no huntress." She said, before sheathing her knife, picking up her gun, and leaving him to bleed and choke to death...

After another 15 minutes of descent and no further serious engagements, she made it to the third floor, and now was just to make her way down to the ground...

*Wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT*

"THAT was definitely an XA-45 Rotary Blaster Cannon. It's Clone Army exclusive, and not utilized by ODACs, so there must be a Hoots Trooper here." She thought internally, before finally reaching the ground floor and looking out onto the street. Sure enough, there, in all her glory, was a Hoots trooper. She wore blue markings, so it was easy to denote her as a Lieutenant, a superior. Rushing forward, she threw herself into cover next to the Hoots Trooper and made herself known.

"Sir, ODAC Gunnery Sergeant Boss here, are you in charge of this armored column?" She inquired, receiving a swift nod and a hearty laugh out of the Hoots trooper as she too ducked into cover after loosing another volley upon the enemy.

"Nice of you to drop in, Sister! That's right, I'm Lieutenant Meteorite, acting commander of this armored column. Report!" She ordered, getting a nod from Boss.

"The enemy has rigged the top of Sentinel Tower to blow. There was too many charges to deactivate before at least one would've gone off and caused a chain reaction. You need to get your forces outta here, the debris will decimate your men."

"There's enemies in the tower? Grrr... No matter. Good work, Sis. I'll pull our forces back, find a different attack vector." She responded confidently, before touching a finger to her communicator. "This is Lieutenant Meteorite to everyone in the 14th Armored, fallback to rally point Foxtrot immediately, over." She finished, before turning back to Boss. "You did good, ODAC. I saw your pods get scattered, looked real nasty from down here. That being said, I saw one of your pods crash East of here, looked like it hit one of the hotel courtyards. Best guess from the impact smoke, Angel's. On your way, Commando!" The Hoots trooper ordered, and received only a nod from Boss as she took off in the direction of the fallen pod...

She worked her way through buildings and alleyways so as to not draw a lot of attention to herself, until eventually, she'd arrived at her destination. There were a small handful of enemies milling about around the pod, but none that she wasn't easily able to kill within a few short seconds of dropping down into the courtyard and sprinting up to the pod and setting her guns down as she grabbed the door of the pod.

"I'm here, Joseph, Don't worry! Just a sec... Urah!" She roared as she threw the door off... only to find it completely empty... "Joseph? Where- AAAAAAAAAGHH!" She screamed as she felt something jab into her side from behind and she was electrocuted. Falling to her knees as her muscles refused to respond to her, she suddenly felt a blunt pain across her entire side as she was sent reeling, and nearly blacked out as she crashed against the hard cement floor, her entire world a blur.

"Ooohhhh... Owww...' She shook her head as she rolled onto her back, clearing her head a bit... only to see another massive figure like the one from the tower approaching her. He was covered head-to-toe in sterling silver plates, and holding a sort of halberd sheathed in electricity, and impaled on the axe was...

"WOAH!" Boss screamed in horror as it was the captain's helmet, scrambling back helplessly as it raised its weapon overhead and prepared to strike. She gulped as her life flashed before her eyes, and prepared for a gruesome end to her saga...

until suddenly, a massive, blue laser lanced out from one of the apartment windows, disintegrating the massive figure's head. Looking over to the origin point of the laser, she saw none other than Bear saluting her from afar, XA-CLC slung over her shoulder.

With a small sigh of relief, Boss quietly returned the salute, before rising to her feet and nodding... Only to look off to her side as some weird clicking noise started emitting from the massive dead figure. The plates flared up and red light began to shoot out from between the plates in greater amounts as the sound became increasingly high pitched.

Having seen enough sci-fi movies to know where this was going, Boss threw herself to the side, just narrowly clearing the safe distance as the behemoth erupted into a big, violent explosion, launching the captain's helmet off to an unknown location...

Picking herself up, she shook her head again, slapping the side of her head a few times as she tried to make sense of what just happened. She'd mostly recovered from the jolt by now, it was just a matter of when the aching from where the jolt came from would fade away. Looking up, she saw bear drop down into the courtyard, rolling her shoulders as she closed the distance with her. Both clones stopped about a meter from each other, with the less-bewildered clone tossing Boss a bottle of water.

"What the heck was that guy? I killed one of them in the tower earlier, but if there's more of them... You ever seen one of them? Were they in the simulations?" Boss queried, catching the bottle and removing her helmet to quickly guzzle it's contents down.

"Negative Boss... but I'd heard rumors that the enemy was trying to make a super-soldier program. This might be the result... or at least one form of it." The grizzled clone replied, looking down at it's burning remains. "But I wasn't just gonna let it kill a sister of mine... like it did the captain..."

"Yeah... Thanks, sis..." She said, collecting her weapons. "You hear from Mouse? Boobs? Newbie?"

"No, haven't heard anything."

"We need to get above all this, link with the Battle Net, one of our drones must've seen where they hit. We recoup, and find a way out of this hellhole."

"So we're popping smoke in the Captain's mission? We just got here, but then again, we never knew the objective in the first place. That boy ever tell you what he wanted? What he was after?" Bear inquired, handing Boss her XA-25S.

"No... He never did..." She sighed, before snapping on her helmet, discarding the obviously refrigerator-raided water bottle as she took her gun from Bear. "Doesn't matter. All that matters now is getting my squad out of the city. Even Boobs." She said, getting a curt nod from the other clone, before both stalked off, making their way back towards friendly lines, rally with Meteorite at the rally point...

Newbie dropped the helmet and raised her gun as she finished and her vision returned, hearing incoming footsteps. The helmet had given her all the information she could extract with her semblance, and now she needed to move. Tapping her helmet, she found that the reboot was complete, and so activated her Thermal Vision, noting a whole squad of enemies walking down the hall. Must've been sent to check up on the slackers she'd found in this building.

It was of no consequence. pulling a grenade from her belt, she mentally projected it's trajectory, pulled the pun, squeezed the clip, and tossed the grenade. After a second and a half passed, accompanied by a handful of horrified screams, the grenade detonated, instantly killing all six soldiers. Stepping around the corner, she deftly stepped over their bleeding corpses and avoided stepping in their growing pools of blood. It was mainly because she was rather picky about getting her boots dirty when it wasn't necessary, and because she didn't want to leave a trail of any sort on accident. After a few short minutes, she found her way out of the building, this time from the back, and exited out into an alleyway. Looking up, she saw that, true to the nature of explosives, Sentinel Tower was blown apart, a raging pyre piercing the sky.

Well, it mattered not. She knew that Boss, the Captain, and Bear at least had landed in this area, so maybe more of the squad had landed near this area? It was a good thought, but that explosion was pretty hectic. Chances are, it was just dumb luck these three landed together...

She couldn't rely on luck. She need cameras, pictures, anything to give her clues. The city police and security office was just a few blocks down, certainly, if she was gonna find out where to look, that would be the best place...