The Battle Commences...

Yellow Breeches Creek

Caripare

Irece Prefecture

Draconis Combine

31 July 3152 

                    With the enemy forces located, it was time to bring on the battle. Po Ding and Sho-sa Jade Takahashi had decided that the site of their previous battle, the Yellow Breeches Creek, was the perfect site for the battle. It would do no more damage to the surrounding area and the civilian population was already evacuated. In addition, the creek bed posed a strong defensive position with which they could counter the hard hitting Horses.

                    Their lines were prepared for battle. Now it was on the Hells Horses to show up to the fight. It did not take them long to oblige. Po's Jade Phoenix was planted firmly in the creek, allowing the cooling water to aid in his heat management. Beside him stood Sho-sa Takahashi in her B configuration Tenshi. 

                    "Po Ding, the enemy is nearly upon us. All is at the ready. Good hunting!" the Sho-sa's voice lifted his spirits in a way that made him almost ill at ease. Focus, Po Ding. This is not a time for idle childhood fantasies. This is war.

                    The first enemy 'Mech to emerge was a Balius, a quad OmniMech that gave the impression of a galloping horse. It fired off several blasts from its extended range lasers, but missed with all it's initial shots. Po centered his crosshairs on the galloping beast and pulled into his triggers. His Large Pulse Laser cored armor from one of the enemy mech's legs. His Medium Lasers followed up with shots to the torso, and finally, his Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle spewed a hail of nickel-ferrous slugs at supersonic velocity into the Horses' torso.

                    The charging beast did not stop. It returned fire with it's ER Large Lasers, melting armor from Po's arm. Po shrugged off the damage and prepared for a second shot. Before he could take the shot, however, a flurry of pulse lasers emerged seemingly from nowhere as his BattleArmor troopers opened thie own withering fire. A hail of missiles added to the conflagration, and the Balius looked ready to fall. 

                    Po squeezed his right hand trigger, sending another blast from his HAG/30 into the now crippled enemy Mech. With this final blow, the quadruped BattleMech sank into a heap on the ground, it's fusion engine shut down due to cracked reactor shielding.

                    He turned his attention next to a mammoth Stone Rhino that the Sho-sa had been tangling with. In a brilliant flash of light, the huge Mech slumped it's shoulders in a shutdown initiated by Jade's TSEMP cannon. With the beast now immobilized, several Combine mechs added their firepower to a withering blast that severed the Mech's leg at the knee joint.

                    There was little time to savor the victory, as Po's mech shuddered under the hit of multiple Gauss rounds which ran up his leg and into his torso, smashing armor as it went. The damage was not enough to penetrate his armor, but it most certainly got his attention. He quickly looked for his attacker, finding it in the form of a hulking Kraken. His computer tagged it as a '7' model, sporting dual Hyper-Assault Gauss Rifle 40's in it's arms, explaining the fire he had just taken.

                    He responded with an alpha strike from all of his weapons, risking heat knowing that he had the additional cooling of the creek to assist him. His Large Pulse Laser stitched damage up the leg of the enemy machine. His backup lasers melted streams of armor from it's torso, just as his own HAG/30 blasted across the upper structure of the hulking beast.

                    "Po Ding! I will destroy you!" came the cry from an open comm channel. It was his nemesis in the Hell's Horses, Star Colonel Colleen Ravenwater. 

                    She let loose with another barrage from her paired HAG/40's. The impact was more than Po could handle, and his Jade Phoenix crashed onto it's back into the creek. Po was jostled in his command couch and could taste blood in his mouth from the jarring impact. His armor was now rent in several locations. The housing of his Mech's fusion reactor had also been nicked, and waste heat poured up into the cockpit.

                    "This is the end for you, Po Ding! You will be the curse of no more Hell's Horses! You--"

                    As Po struggled to right his machine, the Star Colonel's rant was interrupted with a hiss of static. Po was able to get his Jade Phoenix to its feet just in time to see a PPC bolt dash the cockpit of her Kraken. The lumbering beast ground to a halt, smoldering from the giant gash to it's cockpit. Leaderless, the giant Mech slowly fell forward, planting itself face first into the ground.

                    "I apologize if I robbed you of your victory, Shao-zhang, but it appeared that you were in need of assistance." Sho-sa Takahashi's Tenshi stood opposite Po's Mech, heat still radiating from the barrel of it's arm-mounted clan-spec ER PPC.

                    Po caught his breath and allowed the heat in his cockpit to settle for a moment before responding. "Not at all, Sho-sa. Your timing was impeccable. I am in your debt."

                    "It appears as if the fight has gone out of the Horses. They are retreating in chaos."

                    Po nodded. "Let them run. Our work here is finished for the day. And not a moment too soon."