Duelist: Third Person, Cerbus

cerbus chuckled as he watched the red and black power-suit flee before his probing laser. clan tertia is about to lose another pathetic excuse for a fighter...so foolish to send a pup against a wolf! josh tertia stopped in front of a large oak tree to look around. the suit ai flashed a green light in the corner of cerbus' hud and he giggled just a bit as he cut loose with a long burst from his magnetic coilgun. the tertian brat dodged the stream of ring penetrators somehow and was immedieatly boosting himself over the edge of a rise. "He's quick, I'll give him that much," cerbus mumbled to himself.

with three boost-assisted strides, cerbus was at the edge of the rise and could see the armored boy sprinting accross a small field. he started to pick nonchalantly at the josh's shoulder joint with his painting laser as the young fighter diappeared behind a knoll. it was time to play with the boy's head.

"That was smooth as silk, young Joshuah. You run real nice." for good measure, cerbus hit the knoll josh was hinding behind with a concussion morter. the boy's suit was obviously crippled in some way, and if that didn't frighten him...

the "Fuck you!" the tertian boy threw back was riddled with sympathetic static, but clear enough to make cerbus scowl. all's fair, but such language!

"That is not polite, Joshuah. Maybe i should come down there and teach you some manners!" with that, cerbus traversed the top of the ridge, looking for a broad field of view for when the boy decided to run again. when he was satified, cerbus stopped and placed his hands on his hips and waited like an impatient mother. the boy would pop out the side of the knoll sometime.

cerbus suddenly saw a gilnt of red over the top of the knoll and his proximity alarms all began to howl in unison. sortly before the first impact, his suit ai took control and he was suddenly being propelled into the air. his point of view spun slowly as he went through a slow arc. the insulation in his suit could not mask the heat of the multiple impacts and turbulence of being sprayed with a railgun on full stream and there was not a blessed thing he could do about it! searing pain shot up his body as ring penetrators tore through his suit's hip joint and a fair ammount of his hip. cerbus could feel the punishment continue as his hud showed the ground coming up to stop his flight with a crushing blow and he could not breathe for seconds, sure that something broke in his shoulder on impact. his faceplate showed a list of systems failures that his ai was working on bypassing. it was not going to be enough. his back plate began to heat as the tertian painting laser burned the enamel off of it. cerbus rose painfully to his feet, feeling the expected tightness of his leg-servos locking out.

"Who's laughing now, asshole," came quietly across the airwaves. cerbus did not respond as he limped for a grove of trees. he began prepping the special and etremely expensive "self destruct" system he had built into his suit. he wasn't going to die alone.