[dcs_p]Gritting his teeth with the loss of his partner, Steve targeted the metal monster
again through the stairwell remains, this time hitting it in the hip of its opposite leg.
He waited for the weapon to cycle again, this time taking evasive action by
running the Purifier armor down the length of the library’s outer hallway. After a
few seconds he looked back through the hallway windows to see the Spider
outside, now lumbering towards him. Though it seemed to move incredibly slow
compared to his own mechanical armor, it quickly closed the distance between
them in three strides.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Steve took aim at the Spider through the window. Waiting until the last possible
moment, he fired again into its right hip. Unfortunately he hit almost a meter from
his previous shot. Steve desperately hoped to handicap the Mech before it took
his life as it had done Mark’s.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]The Spider’s reply to Steve’s shot came quickly. The first massive laser struck
meters from the Purifier armor, scorching a display of science books nearby.
The second medium class laser melted and sublimed a nearby storm window on
the far side of the hallway, disappearing into the floor to Steve’s right.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Steve shuddered at the thought of such a massive amount of destructive energy.
He hoped he would never experience that kind of heat. As he began to run in the
opposite direction from before, actually moving towards the Mech, he prepared
for its inevitable attempt to physically crush him. He could see most of the
Mech’s body through the open side of the library.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Picking up speed, Steve watched as the Spider drew back its right arm for a
punch into the building. Though his armor had been covered with some sort of
florescent paint, he knew that the Spider’s pilot was still having some difficulty in
targeting him.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]”If only Mark had been so lucky,” Steve thought aloud. He was going to try
getting as much payback as he could before he met the same vicious fate as his
friend.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]Swinging faster than Steve anticipated, the Mech’s armed crushed down into the
second floor’s marble ceiling, about half a second after Steve had run past that
very place. He slowed his movement as quickly as possible, screeching across
the marble only to slide into a stopped position facing his foe. Still in relatively
close quarters with the Mech, he fired out his fourth attack on the giant. He hit
again on the right leg, this time hitting its hip in yet another spot. The laser
barrage was gradually having some effect, and Steve could see another portion
of the armor become brittle and break away as the Spider shifted its legs to
return fire.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]As the Spider trained its twin, almost skeletal arms towards Steve, a burst of
machine gun fire ripped across the Mech’s cockpit armor. Though only a limited
burst from a small machine gun, the Spider dismissed Steve as it turned its
attention to its new foes, apparently the Longinus battle armor of Steve’s other
teammates. The Spider fired somewhere up into the third floor, but Steve
couldn’t see whether or not the Mech’s attacks had done any damage.[/dcs_p]
[dcs_p]As the entire west wall of the library began to collapse, Jasmine realized that her
mission had gone completely wrong.[/dcs_p]