For once, Gray was stumped... his plan of burying the enemy in snow was ruined by the fact that the grenade launcher sucks.
"Damn it, I was looking forward to burying them too!" Gray said suddenly.
They had been dancing in and out of the enemy's sensor range over and over again so the enemy was wising up to it and not firing at them until they went further in. Gray was lost in his own thoughts trying to come up with another idea when Jono called out to him.
"Hey..."
"..." Gray didn't respond.
"Hey, Gray..."
"..." Gray still didn't respond
"Gray!" Jono yelled then chucked his ice ball he had been carrying at Gray to get his attention.
The ball of ice smacked hard into Gray's mech and woke Gray up out of his own thoughts.
"What was that for?!?" Gray yelled
"You weren't paying attention when I was calling out for you!"
"Sorry Jono, was trying to figure out what to... do... I got it, thanks Jono!"
"No problem, just remember to give me credit!"
Gray rolled his eyes and the contacted Paul. "Paul, I have an idea that just hit me, literally!"
"Oh do share, they've spotted me so 2 of them are now angling themselves to face me."
"Can you launch grenades with a timer instead of the force of impact?"
"Of course, I just switch modes and can set it from 4 seconds up to 1 minute."
"How far do you think you can throw a grenade?" Gray asked as he remembered Paul was able to chuck the shield about 100 meters even though it weighed almost as much a mech.
"Now that you mention it, I can probably throw them a lot further than this crappy grenade launcher."
Paul looked around and found a small boulder that was probably even heavier than the grenade, picked it up, and chucked it as far as he could up the mountain. The boulder buried itself fairly high up there, only about 50 meters shy of where he was aiming for.
"Yeah, I can do it, just need to get a bit closer."
"We're counting on you then Paul!" Gray said.
"Ok, but how do I get the grenades timer to start without firing them from the grenade launcher?"
"I'd try to aim right in front of you on the lowest setting, then pick it up!" Gray suggested
Paul felt that made sense so he started to trudge forward again and up the slope, two enemies that had spotted him on sensors saw him moving closer so they climbed up the slope as well to get a shot at Paul.
"Geoff and Jono, you two and I will sell it harder, try to keep their focus off of Paul as much as possible!"
"Understood" Geoff said
"I guess that makes sense" Jono replied.
"Gray! I want to shoot stuff too!" Yurika complained.
"You will, we'll need your plasma throwers soon!"
Yurika gritted her teeth slightly, but she trusted Gray so she merely said "It's a promise then!"
Gray, Geoff, and Jono moved within sensor range of the enemy, no missiles came yet, they pushed forward through the snow even more to where they got in range of their battle rifles.
Gray and Geoff opened fire at maximum effective range while Jono still had to wait due to bringing a larger caliber battle rifle with slightly shorter range, but more stopping power.
"Jono, you can advance as you see fit!"
"I was going to anyways!" Jono replied as he continued to trudge past Gray and Geoff.
When Jono moved past them, 4 of the enemy mechs were now in range of Jono so Jono received attacks from 4 different enemies while Gray and Geoff saw a cluster of 8 missiles come straight for them.
Gray and Geoff did not back down, instead they waited for something, and that something had been Yurika as she finally yelled out "Heck yeah! My time to shine!"
Yurika deployed her mech's exoskeleton support and the large Gatling cannon she carried on her back was deployed in front of her mech, and her whole mech squatted slightly as it supported the rear of the gun and connected the ammo feed to her backpack.
Unfortunately while the Gatling cannon was deployed, Yurika was unable to move unless she wanted to leave the Gatling cannon and its exoskeleton support behind.
Yurika was enjoying herself a little too much as she started to laugh maniacally when she pulled the trigger and a stream of bullets came pouring out of the Gatling cannon. She swept the stream in the direction of the missiles and was able to shoot down six of them.
"Watch your ammo Yurika!" Gray warned her.
"I know! Don't worry about me, worry about your friend!"
Gray looked up and saw that Jono had finally got in range of his own weapon and was returning fire to the enemy mechs. Jono was a surprisingly good shot, but under the concentrated fire of 4 enemies, Jono spent most of his time pinned behind whatever cover he could find until it was obliterated.
Stacia moved next to Yurika and would feed her sensor data when the enemy would fire missiles at them, Caleb and Xyra were feeling a bit left out at the moment as their sniper rifles were too difficult to use in their current position.
"I'm in position!" Paul finally announced.
"Good! We've moved up our line to within firing range so make it quick before they take us down!"
Paul slammed his shield down into the ground to make himself a temporary barrier then set the timer on his grenades to the full minute. Bullets collided with his shield and it started to tip slightly forcing Paul to use one hand to brace the shield.
"This is going to be tricky..." Paul thought to himself. He then aimed the grenade launcher straight down into the snow behind the shield and fired both grenades. The grenades disappeared into the snow forcing Paul to drop his spear with the grenade launcher attachment to fumble around in the snow to try and pick them up.
"Crap, I got like 50 seconds before I blow myself up."
Paul finally found the first grenade, picked it up and flung it with his mech as hard as he could. His throwing ranged definitely proved to be far superior to the grenade launchers range as he ended up over throwing his intended target by a few meters.
"Don't worry Paul, that should be close enough." Gray assured him.
Paul was counting in his head down from 60 after he launched the grenades, he had a mere 20 seconds to find the second grenade and throw it before it blew up in his face. Paul pushed deeper into the pile of snow and found that the grenade had actually buried itself into the mud under the snow so he pulled it out as best he could and chucked it while counting in his head.
"8... 7... 6... 5..." Paul watched the grenade land relatively close to where he was aiming it and felt that it should be enough.
"Hurry up! Yurika can only defend against one more volley of missiles!"
"3... 2... 1..." Paul finished counting then braced himself as the grenades were barely able to be seen exploding. Fortunately, a muffled cracking sound suddenly came from the top of the mountain and the peak looked as if it suddenly started sliding down the same side as the enemy.
The sliding snow picked up speed and eventually turned into a full blown avalanche as the enemy mechs turned as they heard the roar of the snow coming down the mountains towards them. The enemy mechs found themselves knocked down under the force of the avalance and quickly bury them. The avalanche eventually reached Gray and the others, but they had found cover facing the avalanche so instead of being knocked down and buried, everyone was merely buried up to about their waist in their mechs except for Stacia.
"Great job Paul!" Gray commended Paul amid the light cheering from everyone else.
"Thank you sir!"
Gray felt his own ego inflate after being called sir again, but didn't bring it up this time, instead he gave new orders.
"Yurika, care to melt some snow for us?"
"Yeah! You know how hot I am of course!" Yurika said proudly.
Gray shook his head while smiling and everyone else rolled their eyes, Yurika was able to free up Gray, Geoff and herself, but Stacia's lighter mech had been pushed backwards and fell down.
"Don't worry about me, just finish them off while they can't move!" Stacia said.
Gray, Geoff, and Yurika moved from place to place as they executed the buried enemy mechs one at a time until finally all 8 of them were destroyed.
Perfect victory!