As the rest of his comrades made their preparations, Machman started to warm up his engines. Mazer's voice came in through the comm lines inside the MachFighter.
[Mach, I have the FlashBomb primed and ready to go. Once the bomb reaches it's target, it will immediately explode. There are no second chances for this one Mach, so make it count! Try using a combination of your BubbleStar and Magbolt chips to draw at least one of them away from the path, while Aera can help do some serious damage while the others are trapped in those bubbles.]
[[i]Good idea, Mazer; will do. You ready, Aera?[/i]]Aera, still partially out of the cockpit, had formed a large, patch-like white metal armor plate adorned with a glowing green cross. She turned towards the back of the MachFighter and released the plate, where it floated back a few feet before it gently rested on top of the Mach's metal body and secured itself in place with powerful magnets. This "patch" began to steadily administer recovery processes directly into Machman's frame. Aera turned back to the front and sat down in her ejection seat as the cockpit hatch closed. She gave a thumbs up as the harness automatically wrapped over her chest and waist, and fastened her into position.
All preparations complete on my end! Let's do it!Machman's Overwatch sensor pods turned towards the void and silently darted forward in a wide spread before they stopped just outside of the viruses' sensor range, and scanned ahead. Mach's plasma-thrust engines roared to life as the engines themselves started to swing in their "floating" housings, and started to lift Mach into the air with the help of maneuvering vents underneath his fuselage. As he left the ground, his landing gear retracted into his body and sealed up tight. One could then see a lone missile attached under his frame. The missile was long, streamlined, and packed with enough fuel to travel twice the distance it was required to go. The warhead was slightly wider than the rest of it's "body," and seemed to be glowing through the barely visible seams separating the warhead from it's sensor-laden nose cone, and where it was connected to it's winglet-covered solid fuel engine.
Machman rose into the air and rotated towards the void, his body drew a straight line directly down the path to their destination. Aera started to get nervous, but Machman was too busy to be nervous; he was accessing all of the video feeds of all of his Overwatch sensor drones. With all of those "eyes" on the battlefield, he knew exactly where each and every virus was located, and since nearly all of them weren't moving at all, he knew where they were going to be when the bomb was going to go off. As he hovered above the Navis below, he patched all of the sensor data into one seamless battle grid, and calculated over a dozen different target areas, in an attempt to find the best area to disable the most amount of viruses in one blast. After a few seconds, one point stood out above all the rest. This point was just a few feet above the path, and several feet behind the end of the path. If the FlashBomb managed to detonate there, a large swath of viruses would be temporarily disabled, and leave an open path for the group to pass through.
Machman entered the data into his targeting computer, which then transmitted the information to the sensors in the missile's nosecone "brain." Machman checked his aim one last time, and then spoke into the radio.
((
Commence Operation!!!))
[[i]All Navis...MOVE OUT![/i]]The missile carrying the FlashBomb warhead dropped from Machman's body before it's solid-fuel rocket motor kicked on with a large plume of orange flames.
Missile away!The missile darted forward and left a white contrail as it streaked towards it's target, straight as an arrow. Machman's engines swung back to their normal positions and climbed to full power. Machman quickly accelerated as he left 4 long cyan energy trails behind him, and took hot pursuit far behind the missile. Though he was accelerating rapidly, he would be nowhere close to the missile as it went off. The missile streaked to it's target in a matter of a couple seconds and exploded in an intensely bright flash and a deep, ground-shaking boom. A powerful shockwave surged from the blast zone immediately after the blinding flash and rocked the immediate area. Aera had closed her eyes just before the explosion, and opened them at the sound of the rasp roar of Machman's vulcan guns.
Machman had already opened the weapon blisters on the sides of his fuselage and brought his 30mm triple vulcans to bear. He targeted the pair of Whomper viruses and opened up with two bright streams of armor-piercing rounds as he rose towards them. However, instead of moving straight towards them, he strafed to the right as he climbed, which offset his position from the path. As his vulcans depleted their ammunition and slid back into their protective housings, a pair of missiles materialized underneath Machman's wings. Both were similarly shaped, but the missiles had completely different functions. The right missile was slightly wider than the other, because instead of holding a large, explosive warhead, it had a smaller concussive warhead, surrounded by a sticky, goo-like fluid.
Machman aimed directly in the center of the trio of flying viruses, and launched the fluid-filled missile. It rocketed ahead with a nearly identical white contrail and streaked towards it's target. As soon as it reached its destination, the missile exploded and drenched the area with a wave of transparent blue fluid. The fluid expanded around the explosion like a large bubble, and would wrap itself around anything caught in it's blast radius. Whatever got caught in the blast would have found itself covered in a highly conductive fluid, and unable to move.
Right on cue, Aera charged her body up with thousands of volts of electricity, and channeled it into the MachFighter's body. The conductive grooves in the cockpit were alight with electricity as it surged down to Mach's nosecone. Aera then used a magnetic "targeting beam" to construct an invisible magnetic "bridge" between the MachFighter and the first Whomper virus, exactly like the moment just before a lightning strike. She then released a burst of electricity that arced from the nosecone of the MachFighter and surged towards the target in a bright bolt. She then shifted the "bridge"'s position to the second Whomper virus, and sent the rest of her electrical power towards it in a bright flash.
It was then time for Machman's second missile to come into play. This missile had two coils of strong, but thin wire housed in two of it's fins, which were attached to Machman's wing. Normally one would guess this missile was "guide-by-wire" missile, like some older military munitions. However, this was not the case. The wires were not for guidance, but for channeling a magnetic current from the MachFighter to it's target, the Winger virus. The missile itself had an electrical warhead, but using the magnetic field from the wires would hopefully draw the Winger virus towards Mach, and away from the path (if it wasn't destroyed in the blast, of course). Machman aimed his missile directly towards the center of the Winger virus and launched it. The missile left no smoky contrails, but both Mach and Aera could see the barely visible wires as they lead towards the target. The missile exploded with a burst of electrical discharge and the magnetic field would have hopefully drawn whatever was on the other end towards Machman.
[[i]Don't blink! ♪[/i]]Machman's forward-swept wings started to move even closer towards his body as they swept even further forward. His four powerful engines jumped to full power and rocketed him forward like a massive projectile towards the Winger. A protective energy veil stretched over Machman's frame as he accelerated and tried to shred the Winger to pieces as he passed by. With the Whomper viruses a bit further ahead, he didn't have to make any major directional adjustments fly straight towards them and hopefully tear them to pieces with his angular, blade-like fuselage and wings. With the only viruses over the path behind him, he should have had no one between him and the void ahead. He was still going supersonic, and decided to use this burst of speed to attempt to burst through the enemy lines and enter the void. Hopefully his comrades managed to successfully break the blockade and enter the void without sustaining too much damage. Mach and Aera might have been able to eliminate the aerial threat, but there were a lot more viruses on the ground.
ACTIONS:
-[Plasma Shield: Facing Forward]-
-[[color=ff6600]Repulsion Shield:[/color] Facing Downward]-
Aera: IV to Machman (Heals 5HP per action while equipped) [Located on top of MachFighter fuselage][/color]
FlashBomb1: Point on path between the guarding virus camps (40dmg
Elec + Seeking + Stun + Blind + Blast4) [+Take Aim]
Rising Barrage: WhomperA,B (50dmg + Break + Strategic Action + 4TCD)
-[Strategic Action: Approach flying viruses at High Altitude]-
BubbleStar1: WhomperA,B,Winger (20dmg
Aqua + BubbleTrap x3)
Aera: Attack WhomperA (35dmg
Elec x2?)
Aera: Attack WhomperB (35dmg
Elec x2?)
MagBolt1: Winger (90dmg
Elec x2? + Pull enemy into melee range [and away from the path])
DashAttack: WhomperA,B, Winger (90dmg + Impact) [Pass into void]
