Gundam 00: Phoenix
Colliding Forces
Author Notes: Well here's the next chapter, mainly a fight. Anyways I better stop there and let you read for those who have been loyal to this despite the errors I've made along the road. R&R is appreciated so I know if I'm moving the story in the wrong way.
Middle East, September 5, Azadistan
As soon as the Vier left Ptolemaios' launch hanger, the Vier was instantly forced into the defensive by a group of GN-Xs that were firing from range with their lances and even the odd missile launcher.
"Setsuna and the others better get back here quick," Nena grunted as the Vier deployed its forward GN Field with a vent of particles as she saw Arios rocket out of the hanger into the sky in fighter-mode and dive in on one of the machines, blasting away with its rifle.
Instantly one of the enemy machines got caught in the attack and exploded, but the remaining machines simply kept firing at the Vier and avoided Arios which was coming around for another pass.
"What's the big idea bullying me to death?" Nena snarled as the Vier then finally return fired at the GN-Xs with its rifle before following up with a missile barrage from its weapon pods with the missiles screaming towards their targets...
Until they were rapidly cut down in quick succession by a fast-moving object causing Nena to nearly blink in surprise by how quickly her missiles were destroyed before even nearing their actual target.
Looking at the offender, she saw it was an Ahead with its beam saber ignited which then roared towards her at full head first speed brandishing its saber while wielding small shield that, with proper positioning, protected most of the machine leaving only the head and its four glowing orange eyes exposed.
The Vier began backing up to keep distance between it and the opposing suit but the GN-Xs had already shifted their position behind her and began firing away, limiting her options of escape. "Haro, start jamming their signals and try to hack into one of their machines, preferably one of the Aheads," Nena hastily ordered her Haro.
"Roger, roger!" Haro replied with the click of its 'wings' moving up and down.
"Nena, I've got you covered!" Allelujah yelled as Arios once again attacked the group of GN-Xs, this time transforming in the midst of their formation and engaging them at short-range forcing all the GN-Xs to back away and finally engage the new threat.
The approaching Ahead continued its course and as it drew near, Nena instinctively moved down and to the side to evade the machine, hoping it would simply over shoot its target and leaving more space between her and her opponent then there previously was.
That, however, did not happen as the machine somehow somersaulted through the air at high speeds to intercept and brought its beam saber down forcing Nena to use the Vier's beam saber.
"I see you're trying to hack my machine," she heard Graham say to her surprise as it then punched the Vier in the head. "We'll I'll guess I'll have to defeat you before I can allow that to happen now, won't we?" The Ahead then followed through with the punch with its saber striking from below with the Vier unable to react to counter.
Nena let out a gasp as she instantly had the GN Field generate right infront of the two machine. The field began generating but stopped right where the Ahead's saber and caused the field to violently dissipate with a small explosion from the Vier's shoulder pods, due to the systems overloading from the strain, which sent the Vier hurtling back through the air before quickly recovering.
On her status screen, the Vier's pods were glowing red along the GN Field generators. She let out a weak growl. She had short-circuited the system to save herself, but she wasn't happy with no longer having much defense against particle beams.
Moments later, the Ahead came back on the attack, completely unscathed by what had happened.
"I must say that was quite impressive escaping like that, but this ends now, Gundam!" Graham roared as his Ahead began weaving through the particle beams that left the Vier's rifle and constantly evading a lock from the Vier's targeting computer.
"Stop moving around!" Nena shouted as the Vier then went into a full barrage with its rifle trying to hit the Ahead only to no avail.
With a roar, the Ptolemaios then fired, letting loose a hail of missiles and particle beams from its numerous weapon emplacements forcing the Ahead to back off and the surrounding machines to back away from the Ptolemaios' location and causing them to start breaking down into smaller groups.
"System error, system error," she then heard her Haro say to her about the hacking progress. "Cannot complete task, cannot complete task!" It repeated to her.
Nena gritted her teeth. "They must have updated their systems since Proud," she said to herself before turning back to her Haro. "See if you can analyze what they've updated and then try to find a vulnerability in the system's secondary, even tertiary systems and see if you can take the primary system from there. If they can adapt, so can we."
"Roger, roger," her Haro replied back as it went back to work onto hacking into the Ahead's system.
Looking back up, Nena went back to the attack, engaging the group of GN-Xs. If she couldn't contend with the Aheads at close range, then she could deal with the GN-Xs who were the main concern to the Ptolemaios due to their numbers and the considerable firepower each carried on hand.
"Captain, we can't close in on the ship and their Gundams are stopping us from reaching the engines and underbelly of the ship!" Graham heard one of his men say to him as he watched the GN-Xs driven off by the amount of firepower the ship carried and its deadly complement of machines. "Also, Barak has ordered to switch up to Channel Forty-Three."
Graham obeyed to the switch up as his eyes gave a quick glance over the entire ship. "Despite how powerful this ship is, all its weapons have a time delay on the sides and they only have so many missiles," he said to back before his Ahead moved in. "Men, keep the missiles off me, I'll handle the guns and then the Gundams once they try to intercept. You'll attack the ship once we've made a blind spot in their defenses."
"Understood, Captain. We've got you're back." His men's GN-Xs then formed a loose formation behind him and began opening fire with their GN Lances, letting loose a hail of small particle beams at Ptolemaios' launchers.
With speed and fast reflexes, Graham's Ahead zoomed towards Celestial Being's warship, evading all the incoming shots while particle explosions showered around him with each destroyed missile oversaturating the air with radiant particles.
A canister then went flying forward towards Ptolemaios' GN Field which exploded into a cloud of gas causing a temporary hole in the ships field.
"Captain, there's your chance!" he heard one from his squadron say.
Locking onto one of the side cannons, Graham evaded one more shot from the weapon and with a single sweep, slashed through the barrel of the cannon before having his blade skim through a section of the hull which left a burning smouldering gaping wound in the sophisticated vessel before he backed off as the Vier came appeared from above to stop him.
Several particle beams came wiping towards him, but this time instead of evading, he used his shield to protect his machine as his machine bounded upwards at the Vier, beam saber in hand...
Only to suddenly be knocked back down by a fast-moving mobile armour that had transformed in mid-air which promptly kicked him and he then found himself under attack by the Vier's rifle once again and this time he had no defenses as his machine fell back down from the force of the kick and he attempted to regain control of his machine.
A particle beam streaked past the side of his cockpit, but from the violent shaking and warnings that were flashing in his cockpit, signalled Graham that he had taken a hit and lost his machine's right arm. Parts of his machine's right arm were already sent plummeting down to earth along with his shield.
Another beam then came start towards his cockpit, but this time, he saw his squadron of four appear infront of him shielding him from the fire with the toss of a particle-disruption pod before they quickly took him away from the ship.
"Captain, are you alright?" one of them asked with Graham giving back a nod to him.
"I am, but can't say the same about my machine," he stated with growl before the GN-Xs released his Ahead.
"Captain Aker," he then heard from Barack. "You're men are more experienced than mine, would you're squadron keep the Gundams off us, we'll handle their ship," he requested from Graham, still keeping his cool like any good leader.
"Roger that," Graham replied as he glanced over at the Vier and Arios. "Alright, let's fight them at that blind spot we just created."
Graham's Ahead then roared back into the fight, ignoring that fact it had suffered significant damage, with his team closely following behind him in a loose formation.
Today would be the day his comrades and him had waited for over these last four years. Nothing would extinguish the fires of vengeance that burned within them for as long as they lived.
Lasse growled as he struggled to control the Ptolemaios; with all these attackers and only two machines to defend his avenues to manoeuvre left him only the option of moving forward, hoping that Setsuna and the others would get back soon enough to help stop these mobile suits which were whittling them down with bug bites.
Ptolemy then rumbled and shuddered from another impact. At the this rate, their leats concerning problems would the external damage. The ship shuddering from each blow meant they were going to start losing internal systems and the electronics themselves were especially fragile that composed the inside of the ship. And if they lost those...
"Feldt, where are Setsuna and the others?" he called out, still trying to keep the ship moving under fire.
Feldt pulled up the map on an auxiliary screen to avoid hindering Lasse's piloting. "They're zero-zero-eight-hundred away." A sudden violent rumble then caused her to let out a scream before looking back at her console. She let out a gasp at what her eyes saw. "They've just took engine one off line!"
"How the hell did they bypass our GN Field?" Lasse shouted in anger and surprise.
"Their using their disruption canisters to punch holes in our field; I'm already reporting numerous gaps in the GN Field surrounding the Ptolemaios," Mileina responded back quickly as she began rapidly typing on her console. "I can divert power from the some systems to strengthen the field to resist the affects, but we will lose firepower."
Ian then appeared on screen. "Lasse, I need you to turn the ship to keep the bow facing the squadron attacking our flanks, I can't get a clear shot with the main guns and they've already taken out several of our missile tubes."
"I'm already on it!" Lasse then began having Ptolemy attempting to bring the front of the ship to face one of the enemy squadrons.
As the ship began turning, an encoded message then came in–it was from Miss Sumeragi.
"We've just got a battle plan from Miss Sumeragi that is to begin in thirty seconds," Feldt then said as the plans came up on screen.
Lasse took a glance. "With only two machines until the other get back? Sounds like Miss Sumeragi alright. Always helping us even the odds."
He then smirked. If this work, the A-Laws would be sent home with their tails between their legs.
Saji's hand shook against the controls, unable to press the trigger as a group of GN-Xs strafed the ship while dodging the fire from the starboard and port guns along with the ventrical missiles tubes.
Something deep inside conflicted his judgment which stopped him from firing on of Ptolemy's main guns. Taking life itself, even in a case of self-defense was nearly impossible him. He was no soldier and he simply did not have the nerves or steeled soul to accept what he would do.
He wanted to take both options, but he knew he could only stick with one.
"C'mon, kid, fire or they'll take us out!" Ian yelled, pointing out towards two approaching GN-Xs heading towards the bridge of the Ptolemaios only for Saji to stay frozen, now whimpering. "Damn it, I never should have dragged you into this, you just can't figure out which path is the right one," Ian then stated, regretfully, who seemed to know what Saji was thinking as he continued directing the side guns and missile tubes.
Even in his shocked and panicking form, Saji's mind continued to argue the rights and wrongs of what he could do with the push of a trigger.
If you shoot them down you'll be no better than Nena, nothing but a murderer, One part of him said with the other responding with, You'll indirectly become the murderer of the ship's entire crew by just sitting there and letting them destroy you.
But these are real people, this isn't a game! To many people have already been killed!
It won't change anything if we're added to that list!
You shouldn't even be up here! If you don't want to fight why did you even ask to join?
Because we want to help defend the ship and if we don't fight back we'll be taking their place in the grave and you'll never go back to see Louise as you promised!
"Louise," he then whispered in one light breath. "I need to survive so we can meet again as we promised."
"What?" Ian looked at him wondering what he meant by saying that name.
Gripping down on the controls Saji looked down. "I was the one who accepted coming up here, and as long as I'm up here I'll make sure I can survive to see Louise!" Saji then shouted back to Ian as he attempted to steady himself, fingers now pressing against the trigger with a scream.
The cannons then flared into life, surprising one of the approaching GN-Xs by the cannons previously being stagnant and was incinerated in a flash of a radiant pink particle beam.
"Jessica! You bastards!" an enraged scream then came through the comm. which was from the hacked A-Laws communications channel and the caused Saji to instantly freeze for he knew the voice all too well– Louise Halevy.
He then activated the comm. channel, locking into the A-Laws channel without a second thought with Ian looking at him in surprise.
"What the hell are you doing?" he questioned, angrily, as this was no time to communicate with the enemy.
"Louise is that you?" he then said.
"S-Saji?" Louise responded back, completely taken back by surprise. "What are you doing with Celestial Being?"
Saji began to open his mouth to respond, but a sudden violent rumble and the Vier appearing infront of the machine stopped whatever he was going to say.
Oh no, why did you have to appear right now, Nena? he thought to himself as he heard Louise scream in anger, her view shifted towards the Vier and charged.
The Vier momentarily froze in the air. Nena clutched her head with one hand as the painful memories four years ago rushed into his mind starting with the fateful day where she met the teenaged blonde-haired girl who wept over the grave of her family and relatives.
"You and Celestial Being take everything away. Today you'll pay in blood Gundam!" Louise roared, fuelled by her rage and sorrow from her past. "And then I'll get Saji back from you bastards after I kill you!"
Nena gritted her teeth as she raised her head and shrugged the guilt off, she did not want to do any harm to the girl she had hurt, but she wanted no harm in return. She would just have to avoid Louise and hopefully should could modify the plan enough to avoid getting Louise killed.
The Vier then moved away from the enemy mobile suit that was coming in and then activated its Trans-Am system to follow through with Sumeragi's tactical plan.
The A-Laws mobile suits began bunching together as Allelujah had Arios constantly force his opponents to stick in a tightly knit formation or be picked off by his guns.
In its flight form with Trans-Am, he was nearly impossible to track and though the great speed made Allelujah struggle to keep the machine under perfect control without making a mistake that could cost him his life, it made him feel like he was the super soldier he was once again, despite Hallelujah's death.
Looking at the second group of enemy machines, Allelujah had Arios swerve through the enemy formation and herded them together with the help of Ptolemy's guns and Nena's Vier.
Just as the second group of machines were grouped together, a massive sphere of unstable energy came hurtling through the sky crackling with immense energy.
The sight of this fast moving object came as a surprise to several of the enemy machines as they stared at the incoming object for a moment before scattering, only for both Arios and the Vier firing into the area to keep them contained.
In an instant upon contact, three GN-Xs were instantly incinerated that had no time to evade before a particle beam followed up from long distance sniping an enemy machine, sending it into a crashing fireball.
"All units pull back! The rest of their Gundams have returned!" came the order through the enemy's communications channel from Barack.
"But sir! What about the Gundams?" a Louise's came through in response. "What about Saji?"
"We're done here, Warrant Officer! Those are our orders!" Barack barked back as the squadron of A-Laws machines pulled away with the 00 then appearing out of the blue using Trans-Am to speed towards its opposition in the blink of an eye.
One of the damaged Aheads in the squadron moved forward to cover the retreat, but in one swift motion the 00 sliced its arm off leaving literally armless but in defiance, the Ahead managed to kick the 00 in the head which sent it downwards.
Allelujah then watched the 00 race back up towards the target a fired several particle beams that struck the Ahead in its head and leg and readied for the finishing blow with one final shot.
It seemed all over for the Ahead, even with some of the GN-Xs moving in for the rescue, but suddenly, the most unlikely thing happened to the 00–it's GN Drives overloaded with several miniature explosions causing it to fall out of the sky forcing Allelujah to move in for the rescue.
Particle fire from multiple machines whipped through the air towards Arios and the now defenseless 00 trying to claim a kill...
Until Seravee's weapons ferociously went into action from a distance along with Cheridum's rifle forcing the A-Law forces away until the disappeared over the horizon.
By then, Allelujah had already caught Setsuna's machine and then began hoisting it back towards the Ptolemaios.
"Setsuna, what happened?" he asked looking over at the 00's two GN Drives which were smoking, but still intact.
"An overload," Setsuna replied back. "I should of expected it to happen. Trans-Am just isn't stable with the 00."
So it seems, Allelujah said to himself as he let out a breath of relief at seeing the enemy finally running away.
Middle East, September 5, Azadistan Border, Guyana-class Battleship Sahara
Sergei could faintly see the walls of the airfield from the bridge of the Sahara. Soon they would descend upon their enemy from multiple directions and with his forces coupled Kati's battle plans they could not fail against the remaining Rising Phoenix forces.
"Commence the attack," Sergei ordered as he could hear the main guns of the Sahara powering up with the hum of the Sahara's reactor.
A countdown from the gunnery officer then commenced. "Firing in three, two–"
The countdown was suddenly interrupted as a transmission came through one of their encrypted channels causing Sergei to raise a brow and hear what was coming through. Definitely not from their forces, especially not before the major attack.
"To both the Federation and A-Law forces in the area, I advise you to stand down and fall back, away from the airfield. Should these demands be met, all Rising Phoenix forces will stand down and no blood will be spilt this day," came a serious, commanding voice with a British accent. "I'm giving you a warning to allow you to escape and fight another day."
Sergei got on the channel and nodded to one of his men to trace where this transmission came from. "I'm afraid I cannot allow you're demands to be met. You're considered a terrorist organization and we do not negotiate with those who terrorize this world with their attacks against us. We will drive you back from where you came, even if it will cost lives, as those are our orders ." Sergei then saw a blip appear at the airbase as he nodded to the gunnery officer.
The main cannons of the Sahara then roared to life and within moments, a glow rising over the horizon in the distance.
A warning them came from inside the bridge. "Colonel, laser designator painted on us!"
"From where?" he questioned, demanding an immediate answer.
"Seems to be coming from high-altitude, could be an incoming fighter-bom–" The man never got to finish as a massive shockwave caused the windows on the bridge to instantly fracture while everyone was sent off-balance.
Sergei groaned, trying to stay on his feet until he felt the entire ship violently rattle with the ear-shrieking twist of metal screeching in the background. He fell on his back as with many others and suddenly, he found himself sliding down towards the edge of the ship's bridge along with everything else not welded down.
With a struggle, one of his crew grabbed onto his console and looked at it. "We've lost power to right levitator and our reactors damaged! Prepare for emergency landing!"
Now with his back against one of the consoles Sergei, and many others, braced for the impact as he could faintly see the bridge coming closer and closer to the ground with each passing second.
With a massive crash, the ship's right leg ground itself into the earth before the rest of the ship began crashing into the earth as well.
Sergei's ears burned and rang loudly as the outside of the ship ploughed into the earth as he gripped tighter onto the console, trying to avoid being tossed around the bridge like a ragdoll and possibly out of the bridge.
Seconds seemed like minutes to him at the moment and it was those moments passing by which made Sergei wonder if the ship would ever come to a halt. Slowly, though, he felt the ship finally come to a halt and finally, silence.
He was about to get up until a massive screech of metal echoed through the entire ship causing him to halt, waiting to see if anything would happen afterwards until it slowly began subsiding away leaving him and his crew to recover from what just happened.
On his feet Sergei turned to one of the crew who were meant to track the ship's status. "Give me a report? Are we completely compromised here?"
The crew member took a second as he slowly got everything he needed on the console which was damaged due to short-circuiting as the rest of the crew began to attend their stations to see what worked and what did not.
"Starboard side is severely damaged. All major systems are off line in that section and our reactor was forced into emergency shutdown. We're currently running off the auxiliary power from the capacitors to avoid using up the GN Drives. All solar panels have been exposed to keep us running as well," The report came. It was bad, but not as bad as he expected and fortunately, their reactor had not decided to overlord on them and take the entire ship with it.
Before he and his crew could make a full tally on everything that happened to the Sahara explosions, gunfire and particle beams could be heard from outside which grew louder with each passing second.
"Tell Kati she's in command of all our forces for the battle, we're to evacuate this ship immediately. We're simply a target like this, nothing more." The retreat order then went out as people began using the emergency hatches to exit the bride with Sergei being the last one out.
They always seem to have a card to play and a powerful one at that, he thought to himself as left the bridge and began heading to the ship's hanger to leave what could be his grave in the next few moments.
Kati scowled at the sight of seeing the Sahara being shot down, ripping itself apart as it crashed, and now laying partially embedded in the rocky terrain with very little chance of fighting back effectively in its condition.
She had already ordered the shuttle to pull back behind the line and land near the Gobi which was covering their forces from range despite the fact it was missing a set of cannons from the previous engagement with the Rising Phoenix.
A transmission then came in from the Sahara giving Kati a slight feeling of relief that the crew was alright. "Colonel Mannequin, Colonel Smirnov is handing command of all forces while we evacuate the Sahara and proceed to safety."
"And the Colonel himself," she asked in slightly concerned voice.
"He's alright, ma'am."
Kati nodded her head as she quickly began to asses and reformulate a battle plan. The surprise attack had knocked out a major player in their arsenal and with the multiple blips on the map representing fighters attacking their front but it was nothing she could not stop.
"All our units are to use to Plan Y-15. Shield the Sahara while the crew evacuates, tell the COs of the secondary force to commence their attack on the airfield," she ordered with the raise of her hand as the Gobi launched dozens of missiles towards the Sahara's location which exploded overhead causing the sky to glow as flares and jammers were deployed over the battlefield to deter the main weapon the Rising Phoenix used for air-combat–missiles.
Immediately she could see walls of particle fire coming from her forces who had moved up, alongside with the Federation machines, positioned around the Sahara on the ground protecting the ship at all costs as a couple of their machines fell to missiles and the railgun fire from their unknown assailant, but the rest gave no step back.
Kati then took to the communications channel. "Lieutenant Peries, you're team is in charge of clearing the skies of enemy fighters overhead of the Sahara, understood?"
"Understood, ma'am!" Soma acknowledged without question as Kati saw a couple enemy blips quickly disappear as Soma's skills came into play.
The Gobi's cannons then roared into action, returning fire in the direction where the railgun rounds were coming from while its other weapons blanketed the skies with ordnance.
This would be a difficult fight, but it had to be done to save both Sergei and his men.
The horizon from the view of Daveral's cockpit began to fill with smoke and the signs of battle. It was a matter of seconds since his initial attack, the battle's ferocity grew with each passing attack from both side.
With a warning glow from the horizon and his sensors, the Phalanx dodged the incoming particle beam delivered by the second battleship that had locked in its coordinates with its remaining cannons.
His eyes quickly scanned over the battlefield, but even with his high-powered cameras zoomed in at max, he could only catch glimpses of the fight overhead in the skies and not on the ground and now he no longer had an aircraft capable of designating targets for him in the current storm of battle without interference. The battleship firing in his direction also did not help make this position seem secure.
Undeploying its railguns and shields, which retracted back behind the machine, the Phalanx took to the air with a single leap off the ground and began moving closer to the battle for a better view.
"This is Daveral, I'm moving forward for a better firing angle and position," he said through to command as he noted no position that he found suitable to over watch the entire battlefield leaving only one place–the skies overhead of the battle.
Moving in closer to the battle, Daveral saw most of the aircraft now pulling off the engagement and now leaving the battlefield having finished their strike-run in the target area.
The trip to his new position did not take particularly long, thanks to the Phalanx's thrusters systems over the old Lancaster and upon arrival, he deployed the rails guns and began sighting targets of opportunity.
Down below, Daveral saw the enemy machines still in a defensive stance, taking shots at the fighters that were pulling away and the other enemy battleship continued firing missiles containing flares and had replaced the jammers with smoke rounds being deployed around the Sahara.
With a press of a trigger, the railguns powered up with a hum before they fired, breaking the sound barrier with the two shots impacting into the second battleship sending its final set of cannons into a shredded hulk of metal.
After the shot, he began to move away as he could see a group of A-Laws mobile suits roaring through the air towards him at full speed led by a modified Ahead, causing the Phalanx to launch a barrage of missiles which were hidden in its shoulder pauldrons .
Looks like times up, Daveral stated to himself as the Phalanx began to move away from the battle and back to the airfield. "Wesker, this is Daveral, enemy battleships as a long-ranged threat are neutralized. Pulling back to our lines."
"Understood, proceeding with the second stage of the operation as we planned," Wesker's voice came through the comm.
"Roger that, moving in to defend the airfield from the first wave of attackers," Daveral replied as he looked at the blips that were coming in towards the airfield. "Tough, but not impossible, we can do this," he then murmured to himself as the Phalanx proceeded back home.
The battle outside had died down as quickly as it had started but it did not stop Sergei and his men from continuing to evacuate the ship which was now useless for all sense and proposes. Staying around thinking the fighting had ended was sheer arrogance in the face of an enemy that had longer-ranged guns than them. Even with the smoke and mobile suit cover another hit from that weapon will destroy the ship, especially if it breaches the reactor or ammunition stores.
Typical Rising Phoenix action to stir a hornets' nest with a pre-emptive strike before racing out of the area before said hornets could reach them and wasting resources in the process and then revealing they had another card to play.
"Colonel, you should see this," he suddenly heard as a man brought up his data pad which had an image of a landed aircraft beneath the underbelly of the Sahara.
"How in the world did that get there? They must have sneaked in during the raid." Sergei commented before looking back up at the man. "Tell all guards to maintain high alert. We may have enemy infiltrators–"
The hiss of gas cainsters suddenly entered earshot range near the ship's hanger causing Sergei to see a thick mist of whitish gas emerging causing most of the personnel near the few transport craft in the back to collapse on the ground before the silhouettes of over a dozen figures came into view from the mist as it began to disperse.
Instantly Sergei reached for his pistol, but in a split second a found a very sharp pain in the palm of his hand caused him to stop as he held his now bloody right hand and watched a figure in full black body armour and a gas mask approach him.
The man beside him fired several rounds, but his shots missed or only hit the soldier's body armour forcing him to instantly draw his knife and lunged at the approaching soldier to defend his superior office, but the attempt was futile at best. Seconds later the soldier had already dodged out of the way in an instant, grabbed the man's arm and with and audible crack, snapped the arm causing Sergei's defender to drop his knife and yell out in pain and drop to the ground.
The man infront of him lowered his gas mask to be around his neck and stared at him with his light blue coloured eyes who then smirked. "I gave you a warning yet you did not heed it and people had to suffer the consequences; fortunately for you and your people, I will give another." Sergei then saw the man toss a small first-aid bag to him. "Tell your people to stand down at once or I will show no mercy."
"And what makes you think I'll believe that?" Sergei replied, still clutching his hand but not showing any sign of weakness. "How do I know you aren't lying to momentarily stop our attack so you can reorganize yourselves and then slaughtering the rest of my men and me? My life means nothing if it means the Rising Phoenix's destruction," he then asked, demanding the answer. Factions like the Rising Phoenix had no reason for their demands to hold any sort of value, especially not after their actions against his men and what they did in Arvineo four years ago.
The man gave a slight chuckle. "You're in no position to bargin. Just stand down, enough people have been killed this day. If you do I will let your people leave under certain conditions," the man said to him in a very serious, sincere tone before handing him a communicator. "Your choice. It either ends now in momentary peace or after, when blood stain this landscape due to your arrogance. I'm true to my word, but only to those who accept it." He then pulled out a pocketwatch. "The clock is ticking Mr. Smirnov. It's now or never."
Even after hearing what the man had said Sergei did not know whether to trust him or not, but the man was truthful in one sense–enough blood had been spilt. He could not be responsible for any more unnessecary deaths that could have been avoided.
Looking down, Sergei reached out for the communicator with his good hand.