RP: Bounty Hunts [Bounty 2] Castle Crashing

Industrial Complex

Just as he had predicted, the doors of the squat metallic building were violently kicked open, but instead of robots, armed men burst out of the building, fanning out in a crudely done perimeter; he could hear a few bits of their conversations as they talked with eachother.

"-fallback position-"
"-copy that, divertin-"
"-no contacts in this secto-"

What he gathered was that these weren't your ordinary gang-members, and most of them moved in an organized and drilled fashion, and were also equipped more heavily; all of them were donning one kind or another of body armor, and more than one had some kind of automatic weapon. Before Danny could catch any more bits of info from them, however, one of the roof access hatches burst open, and almost instantly a helmeted head popped out. There was a brief moment of surprise as the ganger, who had no distinguishable features due to the helmet and balaclava that he wore, stared at the bounty-hunter, but it was dispelled as soon as he drew a pistol and started firing at Danny.

"Contact!" The new foe yelled as his pistol spat rounds in the bounty hunter's direction, some whizzing angrily past his head while others bounced off the metallic communications equipment nearby.

----------
Anna and Thanos had a more clear view of the sudden change in the course of the assault than the others in their group. They could see another group robots that was moving their way suddenly falter, and break up the organized formation that they moved in; instead of half of them covering them while the other half moved, they all simply moved towards the two of them, firing their weapons in a half-run. Although the shots weren't stabilized, making them inaccurate, the volume still made up for it, and their moment of calm was cut off again as the small caliber bullets rained around them.

The automated units might have lost their cohesion but the weren't by no means disabled.

----------
Desmond got up onto a sitting position, pushing away the disabled combat bot that had fallen on top of him when he had shot it with his sidearm. He had noticed the change in their behaviour almost instantly, the robots seemingly stopped working like a group but instead acted like individual units, often getting into each other's ways, which made his job of cutting them down noticeably easier. The bounty hunter released the spent magazine from his pistol, fishing another one from one of the pouches that had been torn violently from his armor in the brawl, and then snapped the retracted slide back before holstering the weapon.

There was a moment of unusual calm around him once all the robots that were after him were taken out, like the alley between the two abandoned buildings that he was in the eye of a storm while all hell still broke loose inside the complex.

He tattered the ground around with his gloved hand until he felt the barrel of his rifle, still hot from the repeated firing, and threw the sling around his neck and shoulder before getting up. The stock of the weapon was obscenely bent from when he had used it to club one of the bots when his gun had jammed, and it took him a few minutes to clear the round that had been badly fed into the chamber as he caught his breath back in long heaves.

"Assist with the main assault," he said to Anna and Thanos on the comms as he got up and started moving, "Danny, did you get the building?" he added quickly, wanting to confirm that the sudden change in the enemy tactics had been the other bounty hunter's doing.

Smokestack

Raven had a hard time taking out his assailants, who had been ignoring the mercenaries assaulting the complex to deal with him. By the time he located one wielding the grenade launchers they had already fired and moved back into concealment, no doubt looking for a different position to fire to. More rubble and dust rained down on the bounty hunter as the attackers kept on their relentless and calculated assault.

The structure of the smokestack visibly weakened after a few more shots. One of the grenades blew a sizeable hole above where Raven took cover, which was only accentuated when it tilted to the side with a sickening groan as the rebars that reinforced it from the inside bent and concrete ground against concrete, widening the cracks all around it.

♫ Elysium Soundtrack - I Like Them Dead ♫

Danny held his breath as a bullet whizzed past him and his hands stayed on the ground. When he pulled the trigger, he heard the clicking of the action and the sound of the bullet moving through the air. The clicks of the action were still quite loud, but it'd mask the sound of his approach from far away. Someone from about ten metres away would hear the sound of something clicking though - worth investigating.

He fired multiple times at the gang soldier, taking a moment to line up each shot. He was aiming for the centre of mass - he'd been told that headshots just weren't as efficient in a life or death situation. If the centre of mass wasn't available, then the head would just have to do - his careful style of shooting to get an accurate bead back and proximity would help him, hopefully.

"Desmond, I've reached the building, disrupted communications and I have multiple hostile contacts," he reported as he was shooting. "An assist would be appreciated."

He had to make an escape. From the sounds of how many men there were, he would be unable to take them out head on, he'd have to either eliminate them one by one through stealth and division tactics or elude them until Desmond and company were able to get here. If the guy he was shooting at was killed, he intended to jump over the edge of the building with a hand on the ledge and shimmy into a window or another balcony to get behind his attackers.

Industrial Complex - Robot Command & Control Building - Rooftop

There was a dull thud, and the thug that had emerged from the hatch started to fall as a thin line of blood trailed out from his neck, just above where the two collarbones connected. Danny saw the man still trying to get purchase, grabbing onto the edges of the metal hatch to keep from falling while his mind didn't yet realize that he wasn't getting up, and the hatch closed loudly with the sound of metal against metal as soon as his hands vanished.

Meanwhile, there were shouts of alarm from below, and the bounty hunter could hear several heavy footsteps from the other bandit's boots against the concrete floor.

Danny watched the man fall down, blinking underneath his mask and breathing heavily. He wasn't sure whether that was his snap reflexes that saved him, or training kicking in. He didn't have time to consider which as he heard the sound of footsteps and looked at the edge of the building, jogging towards it and leaping over in a cartwheel with his hands on the edge, feet scuffing against the building and looking for the nearest window to his left or right that could be traversed to.

As the bounty hunter hung from the edge of the building he had his first look at the ground. Trash littered the alley between the command building and the adjacent abandoned building, either discarded machine parts or trash that the occupants didn't bother to take out and, luckily for him, none of his hunters -or hunted- were in that area. It took Danny a few seconds until he moved to the nearest window, which looked nothing more than a vertical hatch given the nature of the building.

Danny shimmied carefully into position and he peeked his head past the hatch's frame before making any rash moves, while listening for the sound of footsteps. He needed a concrete number. He opened up a line in his communications and tried to query what his suit could provide for him. "Desmond," he whispered, breath heavy as he peered through the hatch.

"What?" Came the reply from the other bounty hunter as Danny looked inside the building. The room was mostly dark, save for a few blinking LEDs from the communication equipments or the dull glow from a monitor but his suit's optics easily pierced the penumbra, giving him a good view of the area, which was pretty much deserted, save for the noise of heavy breathing that came from one side of the room, behind a huge server rack.

"They're on high alert. ETA?" he whispered back before positioning himself in the window frame and stepping in quietly, footsteps gentle and light against the floor and the snaking wires as something was building up inside parts of his suit and making it expand. He had been told there was a smoke generator in this newest SQUID suit - but they didn't tell him where it was it stored prior to expulsion.

He tried to grab and silence that heavy breathing once he turned around the server rack, lunging forward with his bare hands. There was a sudden scream of alarm, which was quickly silenced when his hands wrapped themselves around the neck from where the scream was coming from.

As his vision cleared, Danny found himself choking down a scrawny, diminute Nepleslian, who was trying desperately to wrench the bounty hunter's hands off his neck.

Danny held his grip on the man's neck, and adjusted it to push points of pressure, nerves and blood vessels. This was not a soldier, but this person could be of value to Desmond and crew. As Danny put his fingers against the man's neck, he lead them down to the ground, slowly as he stared into their fear stricken eyes looking into the face of a mannequin, waiting for him to pass out. "Shh..." Danny shushed.

"Soon." Came the curt reply from Desmod as the man's hands slowly beat against Danny's arms. His struggles slowed down, until they ceased altogether and his head toppled to the side when he finally went uncounscious, leaving the bounty hunter alone again inside the building.

Inside perhaps, but Danny knew that there were still some unknowns moving around outside, and he dragged his victim underneath a desk. "I have disabled a technician. He could be of value later," he said as he tucked their legs beneath the drawer unit and put a chair in front of him. Hopefully, anyone walking by wouldn't notice them in the darkness.

That's when his suit told him that the smoke was ready to expel, and he realised that he was carrying more ... it wasn't weight, it was ... mass? He prodded himself and found that there was something analogous to breasts and thighs that'd been added to him - or his suit anyway. Franz, why, he asked himself as he walked to the nearest door and stood to one side of it, listening in.

There was no direct reply from Desmond, only a click from someone activating their communicator but saying nothing, giving the then femininesque figure of Danny time to listen to what was going on outside. It had only been barely a minute between his stunt and then.

"-Isn't responding to the radio," Came the first voice between heavy footsteps. Whatever was happening, those guys were ignoring the main fight breaking loose on the other side of the complex.

There was a short pause, and even the footsteps stopped as the two figures simply stood by. "Shit," both of them said in unison, and the bounty hunter could hear several hurried footsteps moving along the metal walls outside the building.

Danny - er, Danni grit her teeth. They were coming right for her - and she couldn't go back the way they came because they could still be there. Leading them back and forth would've just lead them to block the exits remotely and box her in. She grabbed her second flash grenade from her chest, hand bumping into herself. Danni had her hand around the lever of the genade, pulled it out and prepared to toss it in once those footsteps came closer.

She took a deep breath. Things were about to go down that could kill him, but there was nothing as he waited, just a sudden calm while the noises from the battle came from somewhere far. It was like the thugs outside had simply forgotten about him.

There was a long pause, long enough to set Danny on edge, then suddenly, both of the entrances sprung open, and his assailants started to storm back into the building, having realized the ruse they were played in.

Danni was hoping that this would be like a bullfight. They charge with force, she succeeds with misdirection. She threw that grenade into the room on one side, and started expelling smoke on the other. The feminine form began to melt away as the room filled with a black smoke that seemed to absorb light. Danny, however, could see through it and breathe comfortably in it.

He then grabbed his blade and pulled it free with a rasp - the blade currently unpowered to prevent detection and the colour of his suit changed to match the blackness that he'd surrounded himself in. There was a loud bang, which was only amplified by the thight confines of the metallic building, and after a few seconds the bounty hunter could hear his assailants cursing as they picked themselves up.

Meanwhile, the smoke in his corner of the room thickened.

In the silence, Danni could hear the sound of footsteps, as well as see some light beams as the thugs moved around with flashlights to flush him/her out. They were methodical in the process, taking their time with slow steps rather than miss out a detail, and the bounty hunter could hear them creeping closer to his spot at every passing second.

"Clear!" Came a voice.

"Go!" Replied another one.

A pause. Then it repeated again

"Clear"

"Go!"

The third time this process repeated, they were almost right on top of him, and there was just a virtual wall made by the server racks just keeping him from extending his arm and grabbing one, or two, of them, but it would be very difficult for them to see a couple feet in front of them because of the smoke.

Danny could hear the footsteps. His heart raced. They were coming for him and he was alone. Fight, or flight. The biological responses were flooding his head and his body, making things seem to slow down, his mouth dry, teeth clench, and mind process at speed. He swivelled his grip on his sword into a reverse grip and saw a thug walk into his field of view.

He pivoted and swung the pommel of the blade at the thug's jaw and followed through, the pommel meeting his left hand before he thrust the blade into the torso of the attacker and pulled out. For the moment, his perceived discomfort of killing was melting as the blood poured. One down... still an unknown number left, possibly 'a few'.

There was a series of loud noises as the thug went down, instinctly pressing the trigger of his weapon to fire at a target that wasn't there even when Danny's sword cut through his soft armor and himself. If the whole room wasn't dark he would be able to see his blade come through the other side.

The bandit let out a gargled groan once his rifle stopped shooting, and started to slide off the blade. As if on a cue, the other elite mooks inside the room also started firing their weapons, suddenly no longer caring about preserving the equipment, and the bounty hunter heard several of the bullets impact and whiz angrily near him.

Danny crouched down immediately and started slinking away, using one of the server racks they'd already checked as a safe passage. He felt for his stun baton, whipping it out with the lanyard, and with his finger on the power button, dial set to full power.

For the next man he approached, he grabbed them under the arm and jammed it into their neck and put the power on with a zapping crackle, then intended to bash whoever was beside him in the face and throw the body of his first victim at whoever remained, but instead of finding a neck, the baton hit against a thick and hard fabric of the man's armor, covering his neck. Luckily for Danny, his target also seemed to have been in the process of reloading, so there was little he could do beside shoving the bounty hunter back with the rifle.

The strike forced the breath (and possibly the smoke) out of Danny, and forced him to reconsider his tactics. The guy in front of him only had an unloaded rifle, but he had body armour and a helmet in his favour - in addition to knowing where Danny was. Element of surprise: gone.

Danny let his baton hang from a lanyard around his wrist with the power cut and proceeded to grapple with the man, trying to wrench the rifle away from them, grabbing the barrel and pushing downwards to pivot it over, which was just in the perfect moment, seeing has the thug only had one hand on the rifle, holding its grip, as the other hand franctically tried to wrench out another magazine from his pouch.

Danny tossed the rifle aside, and smelt something burning on his thumb as he did so - but now wasn't the time to investigate. He used his free hand to grab the man's head by the helmet and push it backwards to expose the neck. With a flick of his wrist, his baton was back in his hand and his finger was on the button - a grin on his face beneath the mask, too caught up in the violence.

He planted the business end of the baton at the base of the thug's jaw. "Scream," Danny growled as he held down the power for a moment.

"He's here! He's He-" The thug started to scream.

He pushed his finger all the way down to full power, and there was a sickening cry of pain from the man as he shook from the electric shocks. More shots rang out, coming from the second entrance of the building, two distinct noises that Danny could make out as the shooters fired aimlessly at several places.

Satisfied, Danny held the unconscious thug for a couple of more seconds to let the remaining two thugs ruminate on what'd happened. Then he let the man drop like a sack of potatoes, sound of his equipment punctuating it all.

He then turned around and wondered where Desmond was, noticing that one of the exits was now free, leading into the alleyway. There were only two left, he could count their footsteps. Maybe the others could sort them out if they arrived, or they could stew in the dark with the dead and disabled.

"If the both of you leave and drop your weapons, I'll spare you," Danny said, noticing that smoke had been building quietly in his suit again during the fighting. His accent not quite Nepleslian, not quite Yamataian, and not quite Lorath either. "This is my only warning," In this darkness, haze and intermittient lights of the server hardware, were they fighting a man or a woman or some sort of monster?

"Fuck you!" Came the reply from one of the other thugs, but nothing else was done by them, leaving the three of them in a relative quiet between the sounds of the gunfight outside and the electric sounds as the cables that were shot shorted out and sparked every now and then.

Danny shrugged. Offer made, offer refused. He put his baton and his blade away and pulled the Ripshot he'd taken from the big pile of Desmond's guns off of his back, flicking the safety off and went on the attack. Subtley was gone, but the room was still dark and the advantage of the smoke was beginning to thin out and dissipate.

When there were only two racks of servers between him and the last two thugs, he opened fire with a fan of lead, gun tilted slightly to one side to ride the recoil and shredding the servers apart and whatever files were hosted on them.

"Stop shooting, god damn it!" Came another voice once the bounty hunter finished another round of thrasing the server racks, one that Danny recognized.

Danny put his finger off the trigger and stood at alert, the adrenaline winding down and draining from him. Why did his right thumb hurt so much? "Desmond?"

"No, it's Lewis Pasco!" Desmond replied. "Room's clear, did you break into the middle of their smoke break?" he asked, undoubtedly talking about the smoke that was slowly fadind out of the building.

Danny gripped for a word as he looked at his thumb and palm. Seemed like he'd grabbed some of the barrel of that rifle in the struggle. "Not quite. I am responsible for the smoke."

"Cool," the other bounty hunter replied, audibly moving around and kicking the empty brass casings from the thug's weapons. "What a mess," he commented.

Danny moved out too, safety engaged on his Ripshot, pointed to the ground, finger off trigger. He stepped over the man who he'd shocked and walked past the desk where the unconscious technician was lying, pushing the chair aside so Desmond could spot them. Danny didn't seem to have a word for the carnage he'd caused - or that the smoke was ready to engage again.

"Good job," the other bounty hunter said, finding his own words for what the other couldn't as he walked from where he was towards Danny. He himself looked like he had seen better days, the sleeves of his jacket were ripped on several places, and the sweater underneath that had also suffered the same abuse. His armor was dented in some places, and where there had once been ammo pouches there was just a long gash from when they had been ripped off.

"This the tech?" He asked, slightly nudging the uncounscious form with his boot.

Danny nodded, and bent down to drag them out from under the desk, soon carrying the technician's unconscious form. "This man's unconscious too," he said, indicating the soldier with a burn mark on his throat, "I don't think he'll be able to speak until a medic looks at him."

As Danny was carrying the man, Desmond, who was dragging the the uncounscious thug by his feet, would notice that Danny's overall shape had changed slightly thanks to the user-unintended, perverse design of his suit. "Let's make sure they don't move."

"You, uh, you alright there?" The other bounty hunter asked as he pulled the knocked-out man along.

"What?" Danny asked as he put the two unconscious forms back to back, making sure to interlock their limbs, criss-crossing.

"Nothing," Desmond said, looking around the room. The crumpled form of the other two thugs were still right next to the other exit, right where he had dropped them as Danny hosed the room down with the SMG, giving him the perfect chance to catch them off guard. "The other goons hightailed this place and went back to that big factory. The mercs are also gaining ground," he said, pressing a finger against the side of his helmet.

"And the status of our team?" Danny asked as he started to tie the two unconscious men together with some rope from Desmond. The knots were fairly plain and simple, and difficult to remove.

"They're with the mercs," the other bounty hunter said, turning back to inspect Danny's work. "Hey you're quite talented with that whole tying people up thing. Did the same people that gave you that suit teach you that?" He asked, smirking.

"Yes." Danny answered perfectly innocently, innuendo going over his head as he tied their legs. "Shall we regroup with the others?"

"Yeah," Desmond answered, fishing for something in his pockets to light the cigarette that had materialized between his lips in the few seconds it took Danny to ask the question. The bounty hunter looked up, slowly exaling the smoke from his nose in those few seconds of respite.

"Let's move," he said to Danny once the bounty hunter had finished restraining the two, and started to move out of the building.

Inside Industrial Complex - Some time later

"Right away," Danny said, standing up and following Desmond as he swapped magazines in his Ripshot. As he was moving with Desmond, he reached into a unseen seam between his neck and his jaw and pulled his mask upwards and off of his face, letting it slither down behind his head and away. Desmond could see that his face was red, he was sweating underneath the mask, and he was breathing heavy, perhaps still coming down from adrenaline.

His facial expression remained indifferent, innocent even as he ran alongside the leader, the sensation of fresh air on his face calming him down. "Anything else I should know?" he asked, accent still unusual as always.

The other bounty hunter broke his pace into a hurried walk, still with the cigarette tucked between his lips as he looked at his surroundings. The duo was approaching the main industrial building, and they could see already the top floor jutting out from over the other, smaller abandoned buildings that they were around. It seemed that that was where it seemed that all the remaining enemies who still had some cohesion left in them were congregating.

Desmond inadvertently kicked out a mechanical arm from one of the security bots as he moved. Even there, on the other side of the complex from the main fight there were still trashed bots. the other bounty hunter finished his smoke break, watching as the embers from the death-stick died out and flicked it away where the pile of scrap metal had been. "What do you mean?" He asked Danny.

The blonde mercenary's eyes wandered a little and his lips dropped a little as he tried to clarify what he meant, "Any... new information?" His cautionary tone sounded as though he was speaking from a negative experience.

His gaze levelled with the horizon and then towards the main building. The aloof and mighty-seeming top floor seemed to remind Danny of a verandah over a shop, and he could be heard 'hmm'ing as he appraised it, gaze tracing from the visible corner of the building all the way to the top.

"Well," Desmond started to say, "everyone's that matter is there, for one," he said, pointing at the huge building. Even though one of the three smokestacks had been trashed, collapsing into the building, it was still no less big, or threatening. It would take the mercenaries some time to clear it out, and even more if there was more resistance than they were expecting.

"How many of us were there again?" Danny asked as he scratched his beard, frowning in concern.

"Enough to do it," the other bounty hunter replied, raising his rifle as he turned around a corner, scanning the surroundings. The bots might have been cut from their connection to their controllers but they were no less lethal, and there was still a good amount of them loose around in the complex, albeit with no coordination or control, reduced only to their individual routines.

"We link up with the mercs, then we see about finishing this. The longer we take the less time we have to clear out before the authorities show," Desmond added, lowering his weapon once he decided that the area was clear.

Danny nodded, reached behind his neck and slipped that strange faceless mask back on, melding back with the rest of the suit. "Understood," he said as he followed Desmond's lead and kept his weapon lowered too, hand still around the grip and finger resting against the trigger guard.

Desmond fumbled with the clasps from his helmet as he removed it, wrapping an arm around the headgear as he wiped his forehead with his forearm, despite the thick sweater being also just as caked in sweat and soot. The lower part of his face, which wasn't covered by the helmet, was significantly darker from all the dust and smoke, and somewhat comical in comparison to the upper part.

"Need a hand?" Danny asked, concern genuine despite how minor the cause was, and Desmond sneered in reply, then kept moving.