Talk:Zumwalt's Skirmish Room/@comment-27404954-20160913235826/@comment-27404954-20160914143620

As the Protoss pushed back against the Aneph lines, the Aneph forces melted back into the city like ghosts, some units even going so far as to activate cloak generators. And as the Protoss pushed into the city, the sky began to fall upon them. Skyscrapers, rigged with explosives by Aneph engineers, shattered and collapsed upon Protoss advances, not only blocking the Protoss path into New Antioch, but also killing tens of thousands across the city. Any Protoss who managed to make it inside were gunned down by fortified repeating railgun positions and walker tanks clinging to the sides of skyscrapers for perfect positioning.

The same went for the Protoss armored push. Aneph forces slipped away inside buildings and through alleyways, and the Protoss tank column entered the city without any resistance. But as soon as the last tank went through the city limits, more rigged buildings collapsed behind them -- blocking their escape -- and the terrifying scream of Devil's Trumpet rocket launchers filled the air.

The Protoss tanks, trapped inside one long, single street, erupted in flame as the rockets hit, coating them with lit dioxygen difluoride. The sheer heat of the flames melted and charred even Dragonscale composite, and any vehicles that had tracks soon found them melted into the road. The screams of Protoss crewmembers filled the air as they were roasted alive inside their tanks. Any who managed to get outside was either set aflame by the road -- which was also on fire -- or by an Aneph sniper should they get too far from the kill zone.

Any Protoss hovertanks, meanwhile -- who might be able to escape in time -- were hit by the Aneph counterpush from the 201st Armored. One tank in particular -- a heavily modified WT-1 Recluse -- tracked its turret across the kill zone, its gunner clinical with each shot. "Approximate trajectory thirty over sixty, discharging capacitors to the 265..." The 265mm, Mach 40 railgun of the WT-1 fired, ripping a Protoss tank's turret clean off and vaporizing the low wall behind it, which some troops had attempted to use as cover from the flames.

In the air, the 155th wheeled around against the enemy Dragon formation. Mikhail's fingers danced across the display of his weapons systems like a pianist, the haptic implants guiding around trajectory and target information. "Squadron, spread out. Activate synchrotron weaponry on my mark."

As the Z-101s took notice, the 155th abruptly split around the Dragons, passing by them in a flash of unduplicatable movement. The gimballed engines let out a long pulse to slew the Griffons around, and... "Mark!" The synchrotron weapons mounted along the centerline of the Griffon-Cs activated, and the waveform sped out from every member in the squadron -- the same squadron, along with other Aneph fighter wings, that was now effectively surrounding the Z-101s, any Chrysaors or AIF craft within the formation having broken off engagement and sped off an instant before in preparation for this move.

Across the entire formation of Z-101s and Eta-2s, most if not all lost full engine power, though some at the very center were spared. And the Protoss planes fell like stones; uncontrollable stones. As the Protoss aircraft attempted to get their systems back online, the Griffons swept down upon them like the hand of an angry God, allowing no respite.

Mikhail himself danced among the surviving fighters and the falling ones with a dancer's grace. "Well, this is a damn disgrace. I was expecting more." With the quip over with, he depressed the trigger on his stick, and the four canister guns in his nose tore apart a falling Dragon. Wrench it to the side, press the bank pedal, and the Griffon peeled away in a long split-S to destroy another Z-101, and fly through its debris cloud, guns blazing, to finish off more. The various Griffons of the 115th indeed seemed invincible; leaving the falling fighters predominantly to the AIF craft, other Aneph planes, and the members of the squadron that wished it, the 115th engaged in aerial dogfights with the unaffected planes that were as much works of art as they were lethal.

The Eta-2s had never really had a chance to drop their bombs.

(posting this now, will finish in edit mode)