The single most important factor in combat was not armor. Armor was a vital part of staying alive in a fight, and was good for making sure you lasted long enough to inflict damage, but it could be defeated by enough raw power. Raw power was incredibly useful, and a vital part of making sure you could actually hurt the enemy you were fighting, but it wasn't more important than speed. Speed is war, was the common saying, the faster that you moved the harder it was to hit you and the harder you could hit others, but it was useless without the last thing.
Targeting, and more specifically target prioritization. All the armor, power, and speed in the world wouldn't help you at all if you were aiming at something that didn't matter. Your attacks had to hit the enemy, and ideally they'd hit the enemy where it was most effective in order to ensure that you couldn't be hurt in turn. This was the first and most important lesson he had been trying to teach the kid (and the others too, he supposed).
If you have enough armor to ignore an attack, then you ignore it for taking out targets that could get through your armor. If you have enough power to take out a fucker in one hit, you go for that fucker as opposed to targets that take two hits. If you have enough speed to avoid one attack, but not the other type of attack, then you kill the fucker you can't avoid first. A very simple list of things to keep in mind, and apply to any given combat that you find yourself in.
When he had first started this fight, he was unsure about the amount of damage that the bots with guns could do to him. After being shot a couple of times, he could confirm 'rather little'. So he was able to ignore them for taking out a ramming vehicle. A ram from one of those would be much more damaging than a volley of bullets, so he focused on taking them out first.
Both of these he could take out in one good hit, unlike sparky throwing lightning bolts at him. Adam had scrapped two panzerfuckers thus far, each one needed multiple good hits to take out, and were faster than him, which meant that he had to get clever with his attacks. Even more than that, sparky here threw lightning around, making it three for three on the fuckers being faster than him and hitting harder than him.
So, with sparky having help, and being really fucking costly to go after if he messed it up, the best course of action was to kill all of his santa's little helpers first.
Adam had let his guard down for a fucking second, and now his back armor was fucking gone. He was now vulnerable to any stray bullet making it in there, meaning that he couldn't afford to ignore any fire coming his way. Which meant that he had to get clever again. Ninety-five bots with guns, three armored cars, and one fucker throwing lightning. It would have been easy if it was just a big railgun or something, now that he had the panzerknight's trick.
But no, it had to be lightning. He growled as he finished bending the armored hood of the car he had been using into an improvised plate of back-armor. It was cumbersome, but it would be better than letting stray bullets into his back and all the delicate myomer and frame within. Turns out, being strong enough to throw trucks around had some big advantages when it came to construction work. He was expanding his skillset from interior decoration to arts and crafts.
He rolled his joints and twisted around to make sure everything was a decent fit. It had been a full minute since he had crashed into this building, and the fucker was simply waiting for him to come out. How fucking annoying, he was fighting someone smart.
He walked over to another one of the stone pillars, it was a decent size. His new frame was rated for up to five-thousand pounds or so, which meant heavy shit stopped being heavy.
Jumping into the air, he punched the part of the pillar that connected to the roof and shattered it. Landing on his feet, he spun into a kick against the base of the pillar, destroying it as well. It started to fall over, so he grabbed hold of it as it fell and let it rest on his shoulders. His feet partially sank into the concrete floor from the weight. Maybe about three-thousand pounds right here, a perfect distraction.
Hefting it, and adjusting it to have one end of it held on his palm, he threw it like a javelin against the leftmost wall. It started shattering the wall as it passed through. He activated his sandevistan as soon as he heard gunshots start to pour onto it, and charged the opposite wall with a shoulder-bash.
A flash of light outside, and a crack-boom of thunder followed.
He smashed through the wall with barely a pause, and looked to the rooftops as he raced across the alleyway. The bots were already starting to adjust their aims to him. Heh, too late fuckers.
He smashed through the opposite wall, and into the second building. His sandevistan deactivated. This building probably had bots over it, looking down at the streets from above. So he started smashing the pillars inside. One pillar, two pillar, red pillar, blue pillar.
The inside roof groaned dramatically after about thirty seconds of smashing, and he grinned. Just as the roof gave way, he activated his sandevistan again. He grabbed a pillar he had broken, and threw it through the undamaged wall. He grabbed a second pillar, and threw it back through the first hole he had made.
A flash of light, and the second pillar was struck by lightning. He was two fucking steps ahead of you, sparky. He ran through the new hole he had made, and smashed into the opposite side wall again. His sandevistan deactivated. Behind him, the building collapsed against the first building, making them both break into fresh rubble for him to throw. No bots were caught in that, unfortunately, but now he had a fuck ton of fresh ammo, the cars had a blocked path, and the bots had two less buildings to stand on.
He grinned, and then looked around the building. This one didn't have any pillars supporting its inside, it was some sort of reception area down here. How disappointing, he walked over to the intact receptionist desk and engaged in some more arts and crafts. It was a semi-circle of reinforced plastics made to look like wood and bars of reinforced metal. It would do.
He picked up the entire thing by the inner-middle of the semi-circle. It covered his front and his head, which was all he needed it to do. Then, he braced himself in front of the building, holding it in front and slightly above him. He activated his sandevistan, and ran forwards as fast as he could to the scrap-pile of broken cars in the center of the road.
He crashed through the front of the building, the front of the reinforced desk promptly starting to be shredded by a hail of bullets. He ran forwards, the lightning never struck, sparky was waiting for him to reveal a limb no doubt. Too bad fucker.
He got to the scrap pile of cars, ignoring the hail of bullets from his sides and continuing to ravage his temporary cover. He grabbed the armored hood of the other car, and promptly stomped one foot an inch into the ground as his cover disintegrated. He raised the armored roof just as his sandevistan ceased.
Light flashed, and the armored roof was suddenly a blinding hot temperature according to his thermal and infrared sensors. A brief jolt ran through him, and promptly disappeared into the ground through his foot. The hood of the lexus was armored slag now, but a slagged chunk of metal was still useful as cover. He hefted the main body of the car up, and leaned it against the slag of the armored hood. Two quarters of cover in the middle of the road, took him all of two seconds.
More importantly, it let him have access to the best weapon that came with a Lexus-ZS-5000. He activated his sandevistan, the bullets raining upon him slowing to a crawl as they fell. He ripped open the bottom of the car to reveal all ten of the unarmed proximity mines, conveniently frisbee-shaped. These were installed just in case an Arasaka exec decided they didn't like whoever was behind them at that particular moment.
Every second he lost another fraction of armor to the bullets raining down on him. He planned on slowing that dramatically. One after another he tossed the mines at the rooftops where the fuckers were still shooting him. They were fast, but not sandevistan fast.
Uriel armed them remotely on the way over.
His sandevistan deactivated, a perfect line of landmines exploded midair across a huge section of rooftop, turning at least thirty bots into scrap. Alright, now he had to get to cover again before his temp cover disappeared entirely on him. He buried his fist into the armored car, and turned it to face where sparky had been. Lifting it up, he then ran, his feet burying themselves an inch into the concrete as he dashed for the building that some bots had just been standing on before he blew them up.
He crashed into the front of the building, and turned the armored car behind him as he set it down and slid across the linoleum flooring inside. Sniper rules for most meant never stick your head outside of cover. Sniper rules for him meant carrying cover with him. He checked his vitals again after that whole engagement.
His internals were the same. His back armor was still reading as 'slagged', but he had a plate over that. The rest of his armor had been ablated down to about eighty-two percent.
A third of the bots in exchange for a fifth of his armor. He still had the other vehicles and the panzerbot to deal with. He growled aloud, what a fucking piss-poor situation. Goddamn horseshit is what it was. Uriel had already tried to perform his AI (although neither of them knew if he was actually an AI) bullshit on them, the panzerbot's own AI bullshit had stopped him.
Slow and steady Adam, they didn't have anything that could deal significant damage to him except the lightning, and he could avoid that if he was being careful. They might try coming down to attack him here, but that would make them vulnerable to him throwing more rocks, so he doubted it. So long as he was careful, he would win this.
…His Tsunami Helix would be really fucking helpful right now. He resolved to kill Jun twice if he could manage it. Review of his weapons, a fifty-caliber revolver with eighteen bullets, a kendachi-monothree, four knives. Review of his enemy, one panzerbot throwing lightning, sixty-five or so bots, three armored cars.
The screech of tires from both ends of the road outside alerted him. So, the fucker was trying to ram him, huh? Easy enough to deal with, he would just smash the central pillar as they crashed inside and trap the cars under the rubble.
The vehicles skid to a halt outside of the building, and Adam realized he was wrong. Cursing, he activated his sandevistan and ran to smash against the right wall as a massive array of missiles were fired into the ground floor of the building.
The vehicles that skid to a halt in front of the building were not cars. They were four-legged things with armored torsos, tires on ends of their limbs, and a minigun mounted to their roofs. Oh, and an array of properly full-scale rocket pods on either side of their 'torso'. They were Arasaka Daikani, and it was just his fucking luck that sparky had some.
They were as armored as he was, and twice as durable. They were faster than he was when their tires were out, and right now they had much bigger fucking guns than him. He had nothing that could hurt them except kicking the fucking things, and that wouldn't do much to them.
Goddamn shitfuck bullshit. Lady Luck you better get back to sucking right this fucking minute, or he was going to get mean.
As he smashed through the wall, he realized that she was mad at him. The panzerbot was across the street now, standing on the roof, in that stupid fucking pose.
Light flashed, and he smashed through the wall into the building, tumbling across the floor. All of his sensors recorded pain for the briefest moment, before everything went black.
A full second later, everything came back online, and everything hurt. He had crashed against another reception desk, this one with a stone aesthetic.
He checked his vitals.
His reactor had overheated again, and the emergency system had performed an automated shutdown. It would have to be manually reactivated again. He was now operating on his twelve-hour reserve battery.
His right arm armor was now slag, and the myomer within was barely functional. He could move the limb, but he couldn't move his wrist or hand anymore, it had fused together from the heat. The rest of his frame had experienced similar, but not as severely. His overall flexibility was down, reduced from various micro-sections flash-welding together. He pushed himself up off the ground, hearing the stomps of armored walkers outside.
And to top it all fucking off, his enemy had some heavy fucking artillery too. He was in a situation he very much did not like being in. It was called 'losing'. He snarled through the pain.
Alright fucker, he was about to start playing dirty.
He activated his sandevistan, and ran out into the open, drawing a knife with his left hand and throwing it.
Lightning flashed, and turned his knife into slag in the middle of the air. He stomped the ground, sending a manhole cover into reach of his open palm. Spinning, he threw it like a discus, forcing the panzerbot to move or be cut in half. To his right, the Daikani were firing their rockets again. Bullets were raining down on him.
He stomped forwards in a rush, and planted a foot into the concrete in front of one. The rockets exploded against him as he did, but he had already rooted himself as they blew up. He let the kinetic energy travel through him, and into his slagged right arm. He punched with it, right into the 'face' of the Daikani.
His sandevistan deactivated. The front half of the Daikani collapsed inwards. He grabbed another knife, spun, and tossed it at the fucker again. Two knives left.
Lightning flashed, and turned the knife into slag in the air in front of him. Three second intervals, he could work with that.
Adam did not have enough armor or speed to handle the panzerbot's gimmick. He did not have enough cover to handle the Daikani rockets. His only advantage right now was power. He had to use it before they damaged him too much, otherwise he would be dead.
That meant his defensive focus would no longer work. He had to go fully on the offense, and hope he could outpace their level of damage. Bullets continued to rain.
He stomped forwards again, into the reach of the Daikani. It could not fire its missiles or its minigun at this range. It tried backing up and smacking at him with a limb. He had already rooted himself. He activated his sandevistan again, his intervals were a bit fast, he was starting to heat up too much again.
The limb crashed against his slagged right arm. He let the vibration travel through his body, and down into right leg. He twisted on his left, and crashed the foot into the other front-limb of the Daikani.
Simultaneously, he threw a knife at the panzerbot, getting a location as he swiveled his head around. His foot collided with the limb, his knife collided with lightning. His sandevistan deactivated.
The front limb of the Daikani burst into scrap, and it fell forwards on the now limbless corner of its body. Perfect cover from the rain of bullets coming down on him. He stomped forwards, getting under the Daikani entirely. He punched upwards, into its vulnerable underside. Very few people put armor on the bottom of a vehicle meant for riot suppression, when they could put the extra weight elsewhere.
His fist crashed through, and he tore his way into the central cockpit of the thing. He climbed inside, and took a brief moment to pause. He let his sandevistan cool for a few seconds as he stayed inside the thrashing combat walker. He checked his vitals.
Armor on back and right arm slagged. Damages through his entire structure. Armor everywhere else ablated down to about fifty-five percent.
It was about that time that his thrashing cover stopped moving, and the torso promptly exploded. He was ejected from it, flying through the air unexpectedly. He threw a knife at Sparky's last known location.
Sparky had moved. Adam's legs promptly turned to slag as he tumbled through the air and crashed into the pile of rubble from the first building he had crashed into.
He had been in more pain before, but it was a really fucking close thing.
He tried moving his legs. They were melted through, as bad as his right arm had been. He could barely force them to shift from the sudden welding. He was exposed, his legs were crippled, and the panzerbot hadn't taken a hit yet.
Adam Smasher absolutely refused to die here. His left arm was still functional. He grabbed a slab of concrete and held it up in front of his body. Alright, he had cover…
What the fuck was the next step here?! His legs were barely moving!
"You have fought well, Adam Smasher." The now absolutely infuriating voice of the panzerbot called out over the rain. "But I am Legacy of Aryas 88, bearer of the word Storm. You could not hope to defeat me here."
"Shut the fuck up." He snarled out, using his barely-functional right arm as a brace to push himself up. What the fuck had hit him?
Apparently, it was the anti-tank missile of a Daisasori down the fucking road. Great, the fucker had somehow gotten his hands on the military upgrade for the fucking Daikani! He was going to kill Jun as soon as he could after this, he wasn't going to die here. He wasn't going to die to fucking anything!
Uriel washed over everything he could, desperate to hack anything.
His fire couldn't get through the fucking halos on them all.
Aryas got into that fucking stance again, the Daisasori started stomping its way over, and all the remaining bots of the rooftops readied their guns.
He wasn't about to die here, he fucking refused to, not to some fucking scrap with a joke name!
A gunshot rang out. Sparky's head snapped back as all of its bots turned their guns to something behind Adam. Adam kept his cover raised in front of him.
"Kept you waiting, huh Smasher?" A voice he wasn't familiar with called out.
Two meatbags rushed to either side of him, and deployed one of the composite plastic instant cover blocks in front of him. The meatbags had cat ears.
The boom of a few dozen automated rifles rang out, and a dozen or so rockets crashed into the Daisasori from uncloaking figures. They had cat ears.
He shifted his head back, seeing a line of meatbags behind him. All clad in stealth cloaks and armored suits. All with thirty to seventy percent chrome except two.
A lion-faced female borg, and an unassuming old man gemini.
All except the old man had fucking cat ears.
Adam had never hated a sight more in his life.