RP: Bounty Hunts [Bounty 2.5] Battering Ram

Rathe was quick to notice Irene's suddenly frantic manner and covered behind her as she fired lead into the black mass on top of Jaine, firing shells at any robot or soldier that raised their weapon against he or Irene.

Tannozako didn't bother grieving for the loss of her weapon's magazine, simply discarding it and using that moment to grab at the enemy robot by it's arm, twisting around with a suddenness and atte4mpting to grasp the limb more firmly before giving it a nanomuscle-fueled donkey kick to the torso. For her, this was a more suitable type of combat, something which she had been trained to do rather than simply having the data input to her memory.

Though, the enemy was sorely lacking in style, if not strength and speed.

Main Factory Building - Machine Room

Chaos enveloped all the fighters as the brawl unfolded. The sound was deafening, a cacophony of different calibers of firearms drowning out the grunts and screams as people fought and died inside the semi-lit building. Every so often a spot would light up as weapons spit their deadly payload or when one of the synthetics was blown up with enough ammo. The battle seemed to have lasted a painfully long moment, despite only being barely out of its first minute. The main concentration of the defenders huddled next to the only exit, a set of double doors, while the mercenaries and bounty hunters were more concentrated by the breach. Despite that, the lines constantly shifted as one spot was taken while the other was pushed back by the defense. There still hadn't been a pivotal action that set the course of the brawl.

As Rathe pumped shell after shell into the direction of the defenders he watched one mercenary club a man with the stock of his weapon, seemingly not caring that the bandit had a helmet on his head. The golden-skinned bounty hunter's weapon clicked empty after a couple of shots, and before he had the time to react one of the defenders he had shot earlier emerged from his cover, pointing his Ripshot at the bounty hunter, there was a sequence of short flashes and the metal around him protested and pinged as the bullets ricocheted off it. Despite most of the shots missing their mark, a few found their way at him, hitting him in the chest but being stopped by the trauma plate.

Besides him, Irene quickly fired her pistol, she watched the fight unfold between the mercenary leader and the burned bandit. Not far from her, Jaina felt the bandit's grip tightening around the wrist in front of her neck, trying to grab for her windpipe but failing. The struggle lasted for a few seconds, until the man's grip slacked and he seemed to jerk, which was by the time that the woman hit him square in the forehead with a large chunk of concrete, knocking the man to the side, although at the same time the mercenary also felt something violently hit her in the side of her torso, making her also jerk involuntarily where she lay. There was no immediate pain, but Jaina could feel something warm and wet soaking under her clothing and gear in that area.

To their right and not too far, Tannozako's foot went cleanly through the hollow insides of her synthetic opponent, but while that would be lethal to any one person, that didn't seem to put the robot down for good, and the robot inched closer to the other synthetic. The Dennis let out a pained noise of static as it as her hand slowly compressed its wrist, letting the Wakizashi drop once the power conduits to its hand were smashed, and reacted by starting to repeatedly punch the bounty hunter on the face with surprising force. while someone would've had their lights knocked out or their head caved in after a few punches, Tannozako's internal systems flashed with warnings as the damage started to stack up.

To the other side of the room, Danny and his own quarry fought with their blades, and when the bounty hunter aimed his blow at the synthetic's arms there was a shower of sparks when both blades collided head on, momentarily blinding both organic and synthetic. When Danny's vision finally cleared from the flash he noticed that the robot's blade was much shorter, the steel that it was made of simply did not withstand the power field of the bounty hunter's blade. A stray bullet whizzed too close to his head, reminding him that the fighting was still going on, and his opponent, not missing a beat, lunged at the young bounty hunter, trying to stab him with the broken tip of his blade.

Contrary to popular belief, getting shot with a bulletproof vest still hurts, a lot. with a surprised shout, Rathe threw himself back into cover, almost positive that his armor had failed him. Upon closer inspection, Rathe found that the vest had indeed caught the bullet. Seeing as his shotgun was out of ammunition, the trench gun was strapped to his back in favor of the HAS that Rathe now held in his right hand. Rathe pulled the pin of one of his frags and lobbed it at the bandit that shot him.

The robot's primary hand crushed, Tannozako took a moment to wrest her leg free while more or less ignoring the 'bot's punches, and then grabbed at its punching hand, pulling forcefully to the left while ducking under the humanoid contraption's shoulder and initiating a throw to take it off its feet. Not content to simply let gravity take its course, however, Tannozako coninued to yank as forcefully on the robot as she could to ensure it came down hard.

Irene lowered the pistol, slightly satisfied at the sight of the bandit jerking back from the shot-

A feeling that disappeared into a sucking black hole when she saw a crimson stain form on the woman she'd been trying to shoot the bandit off. Her eyes widened as she slowly lowered her pistol.

Oh.

So much for her marksmanship contests.

She slumped against the wall for a few seconds and fought every instinct to run over and staunch the bleeding, lest she become another causality, when the SPRANG of shot splashing against the machinery woke her up. She shoved her Room Cleaner in the direction she's sure the buckshot came from - arms and shotgun only exposed, like last time - to cover the merc next to her until he staggered back behind the metal. A cycle of roars and the slide racking started as Rathe checked himself for wounds, and would continue until he hurled something with enough force to make a pitcher jealous, a universal gesture in regards to grenades, usually meaning "get the fuck to cover and pray frag doesn't sting you too hard". She slipped back against the cover of the machinery and waited for the wave of heat and overpressure to shake the world.

Danny realised that he couldn't drag the fight any further and had to cut right to the point of things. The flying bullets were an excellent way to encourage a timely battle. The masked and skin-suited bounty hunter saw the robot trying to go for one desperate lunge with half of a blade. Desperate lunges could be countered by a simple step to one side and having a longer blade to plunge or glance across the attacker's body - or an attack to the legs.

Danny made a low sweep for the legs and hip as the robot charged towards him, weaving to one side of the blade and aiming for a diagonal cut, putting his body into it and grunting in controlled exertion. Perhaps it'd go all the way through and he'd be able to make multiple strikes, like the Iaijutsu exercises against rolled up mats had him do.

Except instead of a cheap, stamp-pressed Yamataian blade and a rolled up mat, he was using a powered blade and a robot for practice.

Jaina blinked and rolled away from the now hopefully dead bandit. She scrambled into a cover, drawing her revolver. Only there she sat and reached for the wetness on her side. Without surprise it was blood. The mercenary leader sweared and reached for her buttpack. There was not time to bandage the wound, but she at least wanted to stuff some gauze under her armour and let it press against the wound to slow the bleeding.

Main Factory Building - Machine Room

Pulling the pin of the grenade back and throwing it gave the bandit another opportunity to fire, the masked Nepleslian stared at the bounty hunter wide eyed as his Ripshot fired. This time, Rathe wasn't so lucky, and although he could feel the trauma plate covering his chest buckling and denting with every shot, one of the bullets hit him hard in the HAS being held by one of his hands, the bullet hit the barrel shroud o the weapon, but ricocheted and flew parallel to the gun. the deformed projectile still hit the bounty hunter with amazing force, forcing him to drop the weapon as something in his hand cracked, but thankfully enough, his grenade flew true, while the bandit slumped back down as he was hit by the last of Irene's shotgun shell, the weapon clicking empty soon after the killing shot.

Not far from them, Tannozako finished off her own opponent, bringing it down with a sicknening crunch as its limb cracked and components broke from the force of the impact. The Dennis snapped on its thin midriff once its head hit the bullet marked ground, and its upper half left a trail of cut cables behind as the lower counterpart fell forward. The mimicon had all but reduced it to scrap, but not without taking her fair share of damage; the artificial skin covering one of the sides of her face was cut and, unsurprisingly for her, not bleeding, betraying the possible internal damage that the blows might have caused.

There was a deep boom inside the room. One of the bandits had attempted to catch the grenade and throw it back, but by the time he had raised himself and poised to throw it his head snapped back when was promptly shot by someone, and by then it was too late for anyone near him. The explosive went off in a violent flash, shredding people near it with shrapnel and injuring and crippling those who were too far away to not be killed outright. By then, that was all the turning point of the battle that turned the tide to the attacker's favor. Decided on pressing on their advantage, the mercenaries sprung forward as the gang-members backpedaled from where the grenade had went off; there had been casualties on both sides from the melee, but while it was hard to determine the precise numbers, it was clear to see that thanks to the explosion most of them were from the defenders.

The very same defenders desperately made for the only exit in the room, a set of double doors that were wide open, revealing a room wider than the one that the mercenaries and bounty hunters had crashed into. Some of the bandits were shot as they made the hasty retreat, but almost half of them made to the other side, while most, if not all of the remaining advanced robots had been destroyed in the room. The view of the room was soon blocked as the doors closed shut.

Not far from there, Danny bisected the attacking robot in a shower of sparks, the metal that was cleanly cut glowed red hot from where the blade's power field passed through the metal and electromuscle. The robot did not move again once it hit the floor. Not far from where he was, Desmond rose from where he had fallen behind the machine, shrugging away another one of the deactivated robots, this one scarred with several of the same incandescent cuts along its metallic body. The bounty hunter turned off the power field of his own blade and sheathed it, spitting something pink at the 'dead' robot before reloading his pistol and looking around the place.

In the relative clam after the brawl, anyone could see the mess that had been made of the room. Dust, long left undisturbed when the room was abandoned, rose in a thin mist, while small trails of smoke rose from holes in bodies and the carcasses of destroyed robots. Not missing a beat, the mercenaries moved against the wall on both sides of the doors and did another weapons check, throwing away spent magazines and inspecting their guns for any damage. Desmond could see Thanos and his partner Anna beside each other as they got ready for the next phase of the brawl, the armor of the former pitted and scarred from the battle. The bounty hunter quickly gestured to Danny and Tannozako to come his way; it seemed that it wasn't in anyone's best intentions to give the defenders any respite to rally up.

"Boss, you coming or what?" One of the mercenaries said over the comms to Jaina as she tried to staunch the bleeding. Upon closer inspection, the wound looked far worse than it really was. Although it had hit where the Muur's Steenplast didn't cover, the ballistic mesh under it had stopped the brunt of the bullet.

With a shout of pain, Rathe ducked back behind cover, immediately looking for an exit wound. Seeing no such thing, he made a mental note to pull the projectile out of the wound after the battle ended. Rathe took a roll of bandages from his pack and wrapped the wound to stop infection where he could in the time he had. After he finished his brief wound care, he checked the health of his vest, which had a number of dents and cracks, but was still functional by all means. He picked up the HAS with his left hand, ready for battle once more as he returned to assist Irene.

Danny seemed to stand in a ready pose for a few more moments before realising that the robot wasn't going to get back up. He stood up straight and put his sword back in its sheath, blade depowering as he did so. Looking around, it seemed as though all of the enemy drones and robots had been destroyed, one by one and any that were still standing were about to be overwhelmed and gunned or cut down.

"Hm," Danny reflected as he stepped over the torso of a robot peppered with bulletholes and heard the double doors creak shut. "They're scurrying. I think they have panicked." He watched his step over some puddles of blood on the ground, he didn't want to leave footprints. He eventually found his way to Desmond against the wall, and drawing his SMG for the upcoming shootout.

"Good swordsmanship," he complimented his leader. "Definitely better in closer quarters."

Her foe vanquished, Tannozako took stock of the damage she had received. it was all simply cosmetic, and would repair itself in time. She pressed the scrapes together momentarily to aid the process, then pulled her two CompacTen pistols from her pockets, readying the diminutive firearms before moving on, looking for another target to take care of.

After all was said and blasted, Irene dropped down to help Rathe apply the bandages, trying to ignore the empty weariness of the adrenaline pumping out of her body in response to the sudden dead quiet. It's a feeling all-too-familiar to Irene. "I'm fine," Irene murmured as she fished for shells in her vest, loading in more ten-gauge shells when her fingers found something.

"Link up with someone and go on ahead, I need to help her." Irene left cover and in the direction of Jaina as she moved toward the fallen woman and tried to help her up, doing her best to make sure she was still covered by the steel monolith and out of sight of any more thugs.

Main Factory Building - Machine Room

"Door's locked," one of the mercenaries wearing the full body version of the Styrling Everyday Armor said after tentatively trying to open the door. Considering the devastation that had been wrought on the room barely a few minutes before, everyone seemed to be very calm as they got ready for the second attack. Without delay, the man crouched in front of the door and started to attach a strip along the sides of the door. Meanwhile, the other mercenaries went about their way and reloaded their weapons in kind. The distinct 'cha-chink' sounds of the weapons being reloaded was only cut by the noises coming from the other room; muffled yells and sounds of heavy machinery or furniture being dragged could be heard by the attacking force of mercenaries and bounty hunters.

"There's not many of them left there, but I'll bet only the meanest and baddest sons of bitches are the ones that are left," Another mercenary said idly as he inserted shell after shell inside his shotgun, several small cuts and scorch marks dotted the man's gear and exposed skin, which seemed to be the same situation for everybody else. "Your hand alright, man?" He asked Rathe, his voice carrying a slight slur with it as he finally turned his head around to regard the golden-skinned Nepleslian from the corner of his eye. At first, Rathe could see that the mercenary seemed to be grinning at him, but at closer look he noticed that the side of the man's face had suffered a deep cut and it was actually his teeth showing from under the ruined skin.

The rest of the mercenaries seemed to be in the same state of ruination, with only a few of the not injured after the last brawl. A little over half of the original twenty of them remained, counting Rathe and Irene, and the promise of that being the last push was what wasn't keeping them from cutting their losses and getting out.

"Or they picked a better place to kill us," Desmond stated emphatically, glancing briefly at Tannozako before pressing his back against the wall, right next to the left side of the door while the mercenaries stacked up on the other. He was cut off before he could say anything else.

"Charge is set," the mercenary said, glancing over to where Irene had dragged Jaina and making sure that they were out of sight.

"Three," Desmond's hand tightened around the grip of his pistol and blade. His jaw, clenched and mouth, the only part of his head along with his nose that was bare whenever he wore the helmet, curled in a grimmace.

"Two."

"One."

And that was the moment when the door decided to blow.

Instead of blowing outwards, towards the other room, the double doors blew inwards, and the blast was enough to throw everyone -except Irene and Jaina- down on their backs. To one side, one of the mercenaries fell over Rathe, his bulk falling against the golden-skinned Nepleslian's injured hand in a spectacle of pain while the rest scattered back to cover. The same repeated on the other as Desmond was knocked back, hitting Danny with him in a domino effect, but they were held fast before the same could repeat with Tannozako, the mimicon managing to arrest their fall with ease, despite that they now blocked her view of the entrance.

The whole debacle too less than three seconds to happen, and no sooner that what was left of the double doors hit against some bullet-ridden piece of machinery, the defenders surged out of the doorway in their counter-attack. To their very front was what could only be described as an ID-SOL, easily standing at eight feet tall, his bulk still massive despite not wearing any armor. He wore the leather jacket of that seemed to be typical of that particular gang, with a more complex emblem on his left shoulder, simple jeans and heavy work boots that looked more like industrial compressors attached to his feet. The fact that he soon raised a gold-finished HHG at the mercenaries only confirmed that he had to be the guy in charge. The massive gang leader roared his hate at the attackers as he fired, cutting down one of the mercenaries that was too slow to get behind cover, seemingly oblivious at the bounty hunters to his other side.

Desmond took that opportunity to fire, but his target was blocked as he pressed the trigger when another gang-member emerged from the ruined doorway, clad in the everyday vest and a helmet. The bounty hunter didn't recognize them, but those were the goons that had been guarding the building coordinating the robots that Danny shut down. The man staggered as a pistol round buried itself in his sides, digging into the soft armor between the durandium plates, and then fell when the next shot landed a bit higher under his armpits. By then, more people were coming through the door and joining the fight, while Desmond backpedaled away from them to find his own cover. They moved and fought with much more tenacity than the mercenaries. If that was because they were saving themselves to the very end, or if they were fighting to survive while the attackers were simply fighting to win, it wasn't possible to tell.

The body flying on top of Rathe forced him down onto the hard floor, jarring his head even with a helmet on. When his senses returned to him, he saw the hulking ID SOL obliterate one of his comrades, then felt the searing pain in his hand that had been stuck in between the either unconscious or dead man and the ground. Seeing that the majority of the bandits as well as their monstrous leader were looking away from Rathe, the gold skinned nepleslian took the opportunity to get up and sprint to nearby cover.

Jaina raised herself as the explosion went by and she heard the roar of the big man right after. She quickly shouldered her rifle from behind cover she used. "Team 1 cover-fire! Team 2 get behind something. Half circle around the doors and pour it on them! Come on! Kill those wankers!" Jaina shouted orders, switched her rifle on full auto and started firing short bursts into the doors to slow the gangsters pouring out. She noticed the bounty hunters on the side.

"Desmond," she radioed the boss of the hunters. "The big fucker might make a run for it, deal with him. If you need help take one of my guys. The one with golden skin!"

She released the mag from empty weapon, pushed in another one and rolled over the rubble to where Irene was. She bopped the other woman in the shoulder. "Hey lass," Jaina said, holding her side clearly feeling pain from her wound. She pointed at the group of bounty hunters. "Circle around and join those guys, I want you to help them."

Irene nodded once, looking a bit less pale, and did as she was told. Hey, at least she's not angry at you... yet.

She sprinted as fast as she could to the nearest cover available, diving for it like a baseballer and praying to whatever war deity was watching to not get a round to the chest. Without checking her vest andpouches for anything bigger than a ten gauge, she began adding the noise of the booming Room Cleaner to the fusillade, hoping it was enough against Jumbo and his overcompensator.

A couple of half-panicked, barely aimed shots, and Irene paused, took a breath, and aimed as well as she could under the angry ripsaw of the machine gun for the ID-SOL's face.

Danny stumbled backwards when the blast happened, but found himself still stable and pushed back onto his feet by the little woman. Well, at this point, it'd become established that she wasn't just a woman and there was much more to her than met the eye - she gave not a single damn about what'd transpired. "Thank you-!" Danny tried to express his gratitude as he ran for safe cover with Desmond, peeling his sub machine gun off of his back with one hand and getting a flash grenade with the other.

As he pedalled with Desmond, he pulled the pin from the Nepleslian-made flash grenade with his thumb, "I recognise them," Danny said as he tossed it towards the gang leader and hoped it'd disorient him or the soldier mercenaries, "They are his elite team. This is because I killed a few of them." He put both of his hands around his SMG when he slid into cover.

When he heard the grenade go off, he breathed "I think they are aggrieved," before popping up and taking some shots at the soldiers around the ID-SOL. Combat subtlety was a weakness right now, and massed fire with Desmond and the other hunters at the gang soldiers was the solution. With time, Danny discovered that the Ripshot pulled to the right with long automatic fire, and short bursts of three to five rounds seemed to be ideal for keeping things under control.

He ducked behind a concrete barrier to eject a spent magazine and place a new one inside. "Cover me," he requested.

When the Blast went off, Tannozako almost reflexively held up those few mercenaries and Bounty Hunters in front of her whom she could, shrugging off the effects due to her construction. Having helped her allies, and then making sure they were safe, she assayed the situation. there were several gangsters, including what appeared to be the leader. The leader, she chose not to engage, because, though she believed she could defeat him, chances are she would suffer major damage which would be prohibitively expensive for her to repair herself. Instead, she left him to those with more proper equipment.

Thus, lightly armed, Tannozako found herself some cover, and began firing over it at the nearest ganger with her twin pistols.

The mercenaries didn't have the advantage of anyone arresting their fall, and thus were on a rout from the attack, going back to cover as fast as they can. Rathe managed save his head from being sheared off by an HHG round as soon as he lowered his head to sprint. The shot, instead, hit another mercenary, cutting the man down as he too tried to fall back into cover. Before any more of them could be cut down, the gunfire towards their way ceased as Irene fired at the attackers, allowing the golden-skinned Nepleslian to take cover behind a machine, where Thanos and his partner already returned firing with deadly professionalism.

Meanwhile, Irene saw one of her bursts of automatic fire cut another bandit down as the man raised to fire at the mercenaries. As the Nepleslian steadied her aim and fired the second time, her shots were thrown off course as another ganger returned fire with his rifle, sending razor sharp fragments around her as the shots ringed out once they impacted the metal of the cover.

On the other side, the three bounty hunters gave all that they got with their weapons in the early stages of the fight. Tannozako's pistols, while not having enough stopping power to put down one of the armored thugs, riddled one of them with the small caliber bullets, sending him stumbling down behind the cover. Soon, both of the Mimicon's pistols clicked empty, their slides locked back.

"Danny, shut up! After the fight!" Desmond yelled from where he was, raising from cover and letting off a burst of automatic fire towards the gang leader. The shots either missed him altogether, or bounced off the machine, although one of the gangers fell, rolling over the body of another dead goon. As he continued to trade shots with the mercenaries, raising or leaning from the side of the machinery, the bounty hunter felt like someone had hit his chest plate with a hammer several times. The steenplast buckled and cracked under the shots, but held. He started to fire another burst at them in retaliation, but his weapon clicked empty.

He didn't see that the ID-SOL had also run out of ammo, discarded the empty HHG and turned their way, sprinting towards the three of them.

"Reloading!" The bounty grunted in frustration, discarding the detached magazine and fishing for a new one in his webbing. As soon as he grabbed the fresh ammo, he felt his feet leaving the ground, and his hands losing grip on the weapon. Not soon after, he was already flying towards the wall; In a desperate push, the gang leader and some of his goons had charged their position when all the three of them had stopped to reload. Desmond hit the wall, the impact throwing his helmet off his head and jarring him to the very bone.

It was only fitting that the person chosen to lead a band of vicious criminals had to be more vicious than any one of them. The ID-SOL moved with a speed that betrayed his bulk, leaving the two thugs that followed him lagging behind as the waddled through the rubble and gunfire as they fired, trying to suppress Danny. That wasn't some Nepleslian/ID-SOL hybrid, that was the seven feet tall monster that could easily bench-press a car, and the only solace that the attackers had was that he wasn't wearing any armor. No words were exchanged, and the only thing that the massive, gene-forged warrior did was bellow a laugh, too deep and gravelly to be Nepleslian, as he turned his attention to the seemingly weaker combatant of the group, throwing a massive punch at Tannozako.