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Clarissa watched as the two lizards fell and heard the gun fire. She didn't even need to look to see what had ruined her shot. "Marines," she growled through grinding teeth, "They always manage to screw up a shot!" After uttering a few other 'choice' words, she swung the Sugar to the right located the third lizard and lined up the sights, but to her surprise where there had once been one there were now four lizards. Calculating the variables needed for the shot, she pulled the trigger. Once. Twice. Three times.
Three shots, and three dead lizards. The fourth had ducked back into the trees and out of her line of sight. She was once again fuming, for she was being forced to do what snipers were trained not to do. She got up and started running in the direction of the target.

((I wrote the post before seeing your post, so in a way I shot when it was still alive))

Steven had curled up at the base of the tree as more shots were fired. This was getting to be to much. But the shots stopped almost as soon as they started, and then they were replaced by the sound of someone shouting. He cautiously lifted his head from behind one of the large roots he used for cover and saw a group of marines and some dead lizards. Still a bit shaken he stood up and ran past the marines to where he had hid the unconscious pilot. "Hey! one of you guys give me a hand here!" he said as he began lifting the man.

Clarissa sprinted almost a good mile and a half over uneven ground before slowing down and stopping. Dropping to the ground and looking through her scope she did another survey of the area. The marines had successfully evacuated the two pilots out of the clearing, but for some reason one of the marines was hanging back. This little piece of information became even more confusing when she saw a fairly large group of drathonians approaching the clearing. She quickly made up her mind to stay were she was, which was about a mile to Jack's right, instead of making her way back to Terran field outpost. Snipers were trained as scouts and they were not trained to engage large groups of hostiles, but this was where her options conflicted each other. For it was also the obligation of a sniper to support the marines if it was required. And, to make matters worse, Clarissa recognized the lone marine, and he wasn't her favorite person to say the least.
Quieting her thoughts, she took aim at one of the several drathonians and waited for the time to take the shot.

[[ If you're posting too long, then I don't even want to know what I just did xd ]]

Jack had sprinted back to the others within a few minutes. They were making poor headway, the incapacitated pilot was slowing down Kwon and the other pilot more than he'd anticipated. He cussed a little under his breath when he noticed this. Sweating more than he usually would in this situation, Jack finally realized the toll everything was taking on his body. Already he could feel a slight pressure building up behind his heart and lungs, giving a strange sensation when he breathed. His blood went cold as he was reminded of his own mortality, and he slowed to a halt. He'd be supremely disappointed if he was the one responsible for killing himself. At least let him do it with a nuke strapped to his chest in the middle of Lizardland...

The vice around his brain slowly tightened as they stumbled on. It was less than 2 clicks to Captain Kai and the reinforcement squadron... Suddenly, shots were flying all about him. Swearing, Jack dropped to the ground, reacting fantastically slower than the rest of the soldiers. The damn lizards must have sent forerunners ahead of the main division... the tell-tale hum of tanks was not distinguishable as before. Dragging himself up behind a tree, Jack peered around the edge of it, shoving his eye into the scope of his Tiger.

There were at least 50 Drathonians closing in from just over the horizon, perhaps about a click off. He could probably take out 20 before they pinpointed his location and could pin him down. And no way could Jack take out 30 Drathonians in close quarters. The others weren't fantastic marksmen in his opinion... Kwon and Ruth could probably account for 3 each... especially with their much more obvious Sugar rifles, they'd get spotted relatively fast. Well... unless the pilot is a star sniper, we're probably screwed. The best they could hope for was to hold out for as long as possible while waiting for backup to arrive.

Jack whispered over the com. "Okay, Kwon... Ruth... Our only shot here is to keep them at bay while we wait for support. Kwon... I'm throwing my Sugar over, give it to the pilot." Jack looked to his rear, spotting Kwon and the pilot peeking out of a nearby ditch. He pulled his sugar rifle off of his shoulder and slid it over with a sharp kick. "Alright guys... hold your fire until I say so. If we're lucky I can knock off a good number of them before they reach us." Sliding back around the edge of the tree, Jack planted himself prone on the ground. The tree was useless defensive cover; it would be torn to shreds within seconds from weapons fire. His best hope at not getting hit was to provide as small a target as possible.

Jack switched on his infrared scope and quickly began offing Drathonians, staring on the far left to avoid being flanked. By the time he'd sniped about 25 the rest of the dimwits had a general lock on his location. A hail of fire flew at him, quickly knocking over the tree next to him. Shimmying back, Jack pushed himself off into the ditch that Kwon and the pilots were in. It was short, just barely long enough to fit all of them in it, but at least it was deep enough to give them complete cover. Ruth was somewhere off to their far left, laying in wait. Jack's intent was to wait for the fire to die down, but several minutes passed by with no signs of it slowing. These dumb lumps certainly were thorough.

Jack shoved the end of his rifle out of the ditch, using the scope display on his visor to keep an eye on the progress of the lizards. They had closed in even more, only about half a click off now. The hum of the tanks could now be heard in the distance again... Jack and the others had maybe 5 minutes before the entire Drathonian battation was on top of them. He turned to the pilot sitting next to him in the ditch. "So are you any good at using a rifle? We may be needing some help when everything goes to $#!T in about 2 minutes. By the way... what's your name? I feel weird just calling you pilot dude."

((a bit short, i am a little busy))

Through her scope she watched the marines and pilots try futilely to make headway against the drathonians who steadily were closing in on them. She remained where she was and let the drathonians pass a mile in front of her. When the lizards were a good distance away and the marines had taken cover, she opened up fire on the drathonians from behind. She went quickly through rounds as she began to pick them off. By doing so she was hoping for either one or two things to happen. One, she wanted to reduce the number of hostiles facing the marines. And two, she hoped some would turn and come towards her.

As the energy blasts pounded down on the Drathonian column, the lizards broke and scattered. There was no longer any fire coming down on Jack's position, and the Drathonians within range were in the direct line of fire of two very angry, traitorous pilots. This was their chance! "Move, move, move! Kwon, Ruth, Steven, let's get the hell out of here!" Not bothering to wait for anyone to pick up the incapacitated pilot, Jack bent down and slung him over his shoulder. The man weighed almost as much as he did, but Jack was getting an energizing wave of adrenaline that allowed him to carry the man with relative ease.

Kwon was already out of the ditch, and Jack grabbed an outstretched arm to pull himself out of the pit. Ruth was waiting for them, turned towards them to provide supporting fire. Without looking back, Jack charged away from the Drathonian line, giving his partners a difficult time keeping up. He was seeing double, no longer even sweating ( a more sinister symptom than you would think... when you're no longer sweating it means your body is completely out of spare fluids and going into heat stroke. People can die if not treated quickly enough. ), and felt like his guts were going to crawl out his mouth, but still Jack's hardened muscles refused to buckle under the increasingly torturous situation his body was going through.

[[ Okay... for lack of a better idea, it's time to play the 'epic pass out' card! It would seem that I'm using this in all of my RPs while I'm away sweatdrop Guess it's up to the rest of you to save my crazy butt. ]]

The firefight left somewhat behind, Jack and the others cleared the horizon, escaping from the line of sight of the lizard legion. Still holding everyone to a swift forced march, Jack pressed on, ignoring the aches and pains of his body as the extreme strain he was putting himself through grew exponentially worse. They were getting close to help: any minute now they would rendezvous with Kai's evac squad. Grunting and biting his tongue, he pressed on.

The group came to a fair-sized river, slicing through the forest like a small wound. It was down a short ravine, perhaps 5 meters deep to the surface of the water, and was moving fairly rapidly. Looking upriver, Jack spotted a shallower section where the cliff narrowed enough to get a boost up on the other side. Jogging upstream, Jack sloshed into the knee-deep river. The crossing was filled with massive boulders and fallen trees, creating a maze-like path to the other side. At the very least, this broke the current of the river somewhat, and made it easy to walk across.

Barely halfway through, apprehension kicked in to the back of Jack's mind. Eyes darting upriver, he caught the source of the sensation: a dozen Drathonians were charging along the bank behind them, shouting and pointing at the group. Jack had just enough time to hop roughly behind a nearby boulder before they began opening fire. He was reaching the end of his fuse; a man could only put up with being shot at so much in one day. As the adrenaline began kicking in, Jack set the unconscious man he was carrying down against the boulder.

Immediately, Jack could tell something was wrong. The adrenaline pumped through him, bringing a burning sensation to every nerve in his body. He tried to disregard it, to grab for his rifle, but his arms wouldn't budge. His muscles locked, and a harsh ringing broke out in his ears. His vision blurred, and he fell hopelessly to his knees in the water. The final thread was tugging free: the vice on his brain was reaching critical. Jack released a cry of agonizing pain, but when noise would have come out, all he could do was cough up blood. Completely destabilized, Jack passed out in the river, collapsing with his face down in the water.