This is an excerpt from Raven: The Call from Central and is from Raven’s first match with Iskandar Prime on Confexia.
She back-tracked into the spawning room, took the side exit and up the stairs. There she found some armor and more weaponry….and a super health pack. The next opening was on the same level as two of the miniguns. One turned to fire at her. She dodged, launched a couple rockets and dived to ground level. She managed to cross the open space and then was in a section with another minigun. She took out the oblivious gunner, but didn’t take out the minigun as it would take too much time. One of the objectives was through an opening right behind it. She fired everything she had at it, but it wore down slowly. Then there was the Goliath shot that she couldn’t dodge.
She spawned right behind Soria. The team captain pointed and just said, “Raptor”. Raven commed acknowledgment and ran for the flyer. The Raptor can fly much higher than the Manta, had better armor and weaponry, but was more difficult to control and not as fast. Raven banged into the building as she flew over it.
She hoped to distract the enemy and help her team. She lasted about 10 seconds as the miniguns were on her and so were the machine guns on the Goliaths. She managed a few hits on the sentinel next to the power station before exploding.
She spawned and jumped into the Raptor again. This time with less hesitation she took out the sentinel, and hit the objective a couple of times before being hit by a Goliath again.
Now Raven was angry. She was back in the Raptor and went right after the enemy’s remaining Goliath. She got fragged in the air and watched as her last two energy bursts blew up the tank.
She spawned again and was back in the Raptor again. She’d picked up the knack of flying the wobbly craft. This time she sneaked around the back of the building. She heard the power station blow up. The tank production facility was still active. She got there just as their Goliath got there. The Goliath took out the last minigun, and they both reduced that objective.
The force field went down and Raven guided the Raptor toward the next objective. They had two Goliaths, a Hellbender and a Raptor against three miniguns, a Raptor and two Goliaths. The problem was that the enemy had the high ground and the objective was behind a wall in front of them.
She spun the Raptor in a circle, hit the hill and tried to fire at the objective. The Raptor exploded and she was again spawning. She grabbed weapons off the turnstile and hopped in a Goliath that Zinaida was driving. She fired the machine gun at everything and anything as the Goliath got pounded.
When it exploded, they were both flung free and ran to the base of the hill for cover and to begin firing at the objective. This was another one that was tough for hand-held weapons. Quickly, an enemy rocket found Raven.
She spawned next to a spawning Goliath and hopped in. Chaoschick joined her, running the minigun. She drove right for the objective, with both of them constantly firing. She pulled up at the base of the hill and began pounding the objective with the cannon. She was nudged from behind and saw the second Goliath joining her. Despite the rockets and Avrils, they finished the objective and then it was up the hill toward the Anti-aircraft array.
Gothgirl in a Raptor was already firing away at it until an Avril hit her. Both Raven and Chaos fired as fast as they could once the array was in sight. The enemy’s emplacements were all on one side of this open objective, so she pulled around behind to cut off their fire. It only took ten seconds for the array to fall after the Raptor and the other Goliath joined her.
The next objective was tough. It was called the Blue Perimeter. You had to move downhill between four miniguns and a Goliath, turn a corner and hit an objective on a high angle that was guarded by three more miniguns. The enemy also had a strong Raptor. They had two Goliaths, a Hellbender and a Raptor.
Those two Goliaths were now in file down the hill with Raven and Chaoschick in the lead. Raven was having trouble hitting the miniguns with the cannon and there were several enemies on the slope firing Avrils at them. The already reduced Goliath exploded. Raven was fragged before she even hit the ground.
When she spawned, the Hellbender and both Goliaths were gone. She jumped in the Raptor, and after ascending checked her map. Once down the hill, the vista opened up: Raven noticed she could stand off a long way and hit the objective.
She maneuvered as far away as she could next to a building, lined up and began firing at the objective in the distance.
For a while it was great, as the enemy was distracted by the Goliath attack. Then a minigun found her and she got the warning as an Avril was heading toward her. She didn’t know how to dodge an Avril and kept firing at the objective until the guided rocket blew up the Raptor. Need some training, she thought as she fell, just before she splattered on the ground.
The last fragging was a bit disorienting and Raven hesitated as she spawned. It was a new spawn point. I must’ve distracted them enough for the others to get the objective, she thought.
She viewed the map in her mind. From where she was, she could see Grabby and Angel in a Goliath, pounding away at the training facility. This stage also had two objectives, an airfield on the lower level and a training facility up the hill.
Again there was the Raptor. She maneuvered behind a building and found an angle to hit the air field. While the Raptor’s guided rockets could take off more of the objective, using the rapid fire blasters seemed quicker and were more satisfying. The objective was already half down by the time she started firing. She finished it off and got the award sound in her ear.
“Yeah, baby!” She yelled, dropping all composure.
“Way to go ice-girl!” came Chaoschick’s voice over the intercom.
“Good job, Raven!” croaked Skylla.
They were now at the final stage. There was a long winding gully toward the final two objectives. One was a radar array that looked easy to hit, but the other one! It was a power station stuck in to the side of a hill under the cover of two miniguns and a regenerating Goliath in front of it. And they had a heavy Raptor.
She began to notice that the strength of the vehicles varied, although they looked the same otherwise. Dive in, she thought, only way to go. She darted the Raptor and spun it around to hit the power station. She banged into the building behind her and the miniguns found her. Raven got a couple of shots off before an Avril brought her down. This time, falling was not as disorienting.
She spawned and everything but the Hellbender was gone. She wasn’t quite so sure about that vehicle, so she headed off on foot. She came up the hill behind the miniguns, but only got one rocket off before they got her.
She did notice something that Grabby did. He took the Raptor and flew it low behind the miniguns. He didn’t get many shots off before the Raptor exploded. However, not being killed by a fall, he dodged down into a gully beside the power station and began firing at it. The Goliath got him quickly, however.
Raven did notice also that the enemy tended to focus on Grabby as the greatest threat. So she decided to follow his lead. She jumped into the Raptor and flew low. The miniguns blew the Raptor and she landed on her feet. She ran for the gully while shooting a rocket over her shoulder. One of miniguns exploded. She didn’t stop to see if it was her shot, but the sound was satisfying all the same.
She began pounding the objective with the flak cannon. The enemy Raptor found her and tried to hit her. The angle was bad for the Raptor pilot and Raven dodged back and forth while firing. The objective blew and she ran out into the open to get at the array. Then the Raptor got her.
She had spawned and was driving a Goliath when the final objective exploded. The time remaining was 11:24. Raven didn’t know if that was good or not, but there leaked through some crowd cheer.
Raven of Iskandar 