RP: Bounty Hunts [Bounty 4] Firestarters

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compound, south side

Duncan slid out of the van, crouched and brought up his RGL. He focused his reflex sight between the two gangers at the entrance. He had faith that his fellows could dispatch the two quietly but if push came to shove he would be ready to provide a messier solution.

These types they were engaging, they were everything wrong with Nepleslia. They took what they wanted and killed who they wanted. How many of Duncan's 'kids' had been made orphans by asshats just like these. He'd be doing the next generation a favor if he wiped them out.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compund, North Side

As soon as Rathe set foot outside the shuttle and saw just where in Funky City they were, he remembered why those blueprints looked so familiar. He had seen them before in planning for a raid on the very same building with his brothers in the Gold Standard. Well, former brothers, but now that Korr had disappeared, Rathe knew he had friends in the gang that he didn't want dealing with the aftermath of a bounty.

Knowing his current skin color would almost certainly lead to another gang war, the hunter quickly thought up a way to camouflage himself. Rathe made his way to the curb of the road and knealt above a dark, grungy puddle resting at the curb before cupping the dirt and water in his hands and, to the surprise of the others, washing his face in it. It wasn't pretty, but it worked, as the golden skin on his face, and any link to the Standard, was covered by the contents of whatever washed out of the road and settled in that puddle.

With his camouflage in place, Rathe returned back to the rest of the hunters and cleaned his hands off on his pants. Pulling his backpack and shotgun back over his shoulder, the now brown skinned bounty hunter was ready for action.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compund, North Side

Amanozako was next off the shuttle. She moved gracefully, silently, like a cat. Her impaler rifle was in her hands and she was already switching through visual spectrums as she came to a stop near the group, crouching, awaiting the next move.

The neko was tied into their comm channel via her wireless, able to think voice communications to them without even speaking.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compound, North Side

The transtmospheric shuttle started to accelerate upwards, the thrumm of the engines loud enough to make the diaphragm vibrate. The shuttle moved slowly at first but shoot up once it cleared the buildings, disappearing into the night sky, but there was no doubt that its pilot was still hovering around waiting in case there was an emergency. As if on a cue, some of the lights behind the windows on the buildings surrounding the group, then quickly shut off as the occupants inside saw what the noise had been about. To them, it was just another day and business as usual in Funky City.

"Amano, get to high ground" Desmond said, letting his rifle hang by its sling in front of him and drawing the sidearm from its holster on his right leg; there was no need to make things loud yet. "Danny, you're on point. Remember, there's two sentries on this side," the Nepleslian said, already moving against the buildings to his right so he would stay out of the open street. "Rathe watch the surroundings," he said, moving closer to the corner towards the target area.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compund, south side

The two mercenaries moved forward, inching around the corner until either of them had their sights on the two gangers outside the main entrance. The man on the front, with a silenced IBR crouched down, then waited for his partner standing behind him to aim his suppressed Ripshot at the other sentry. There was a barely inaudible thump from their guns as they fired, and another one as either of the sentries fell where they stood.

"Clear boss," the crouching mercenary replied, turning around to regard Jaina. The man had a single, snakelike scar going across the corner of his mouth all the way to his upper cheek.

Outside the Compound

"Got it." Rathe responded with a nod, equipping the .45 from his jacket in his right hand and his knife in the left. The hunter stayed near Desmond as he scoped the area out. Seeing as how most of Funky City had called it a night by now, Rathe didn't have much to look out for, but stayed vigilant nonetheless.

"I tell ya, if we get outta here clean, next round a shots are on me..." Rathe commented, hoping to lighten the mood before the smell of gunsmoke became more prevalent than the smell of pollution. Basically when shit hit the fan.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compund, North Side

Jaina responded to her men with a 'roger' and moved up with rest of her mercs to the two stealth soldiers. She leaned out and checked the gate for any more dangers, while she called up Desmond.

"This is Jaina," she said. "North gate cleared. We are moving up to prepase for breaching."

"You lot, we approach in twos. Duncan you are with me." She said to her men and then turned to two men with silenced weapons. "You two cover us, when we get there, catch up with us."

"Duncan," she said to the large man. "When we are there, check those two bodies for any keycard or anything interesting. All right let's go."

She took another look and than waved at Duncan to follow her to the gate.

North Side

"High ground, right" Amanozako replieover the comm channel. She ducked into the shadow of a near building and silently jumped up onto a fire escape ladder, landing softly and without a sound with the aid of her gravity control system. She swarmed the rest of the way up the fire escape to tue roof without a sound, her feet almost not touching the platform and ladders as she ascended.

"I have the high ground" she said over the radio as she crouched on the edge of a rooftop, looking towards their target from her new, higher vantage point.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compund, North Side

Duncan nodded to Jaina as he said, "Sure thing, let's move boss." He moved steadily up to the downed guards keeping his launcher shouldered and at the ready. He scanned briefly away from the wall and up to the top of the wall, being sure they wouldn't be surprised.

Once he reached the bodies he quickly went to one knee, tipped the launcher down but continuing to hold the grip with his right hand. He used his freed left hand to start patting down the most likely spots for pocket storage, thigh, chest, waist, etc.

Funky City, Southern Shore District, North Side of Burnouts Compound
Seemed easy enough an objective. Move up, take out the two sentries. "Affirmative," he said as he dipped out of the main road and went the opposite Desmond into the shadows of the buildings to the left of the landing zone, keeping low and blending in with the urban grime.

He spotted the two sentries guarding the door, who were looking up in the sky, looking wary at the shuttle that'd flown in and by, then looking to each other with a shrug. Shuttles came and went in the middle of the night dropping off random people and things all the time around these parts, given that it was a shore district. It was a worthwhile enough distraction for Danny as he lined up his shots from the dark, seeing the two sentries out in the open by the gates.

"I have an aim. Say when." Danny mumbled over radio to Desmond, peering through the iron sights at a head and ready to swivel to another head. All he needed was his word and he'd drop 'em.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compound, North Side

"Don't expect this to go wrong," Desmond said, his voice slightly distorter by the helmet's. Slowly, the bounty hunter crouched lower and gestured for the squad medic to do the same as he watched the two white silhouettes through the white-on-black thermal sights and head Danny on the comms. "Drop them," he said.

Danny's first shot went clean through one of the sentrie's neck from the side, making the man drop to a knee and instantly cluch one of the new breathing holes he had acquired. The second sentry was started by that, but the movement didn't botch the bounty hunter's follow-up shot, which he saw clearly through the sights had gone through the man's right cheeck, putting him down. The two sentries were effectively neutralized, with the exception of the one ganger that still crawled around and tried to clutch at the handle for the heavy metal door trying to open it, which his other hand tried to keep him from bleeding out.

From where he was, Desmond wondered why he didn't yell for alarm. He pressed a finger against the side of his helmet and reopened the channel to Jaina. "We're starting the breach," he said, getting up and jogging towards Danny, motioning for their medic to follow him. After he closed the channel with Jaina, he opened a second one. "Kendra, are you listening?"

Up on the adjacent building's rooftop, Amanozako could get a good look at the compound. The warehouse facing the north side remained completely dark through every single glass window on the corrugated metal roof; the same cargo truck that was supposed to be there wasn't surprisingly absent like it was said it would be on the early briefing, which would be enough to set up a few red flags given that the gang in charge of the compound was, if anything, very punctual on those unmarked truck deliveries. It was enough to even put most courier services to shame.

Looking further north, the neko could also see what looked like a smoking pile of wood with a single metal post standing in the middle. Smoke still wafted from it. Right behind that was the two-story brick building, with its only visible entrace standing in the middle of two burning barrels.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compound, South Side

With their feet splashing against the black sludge that ran down the streets, the mercenaries made their way to the southern corner entrance of the compound, arriving in time to set up their breach of the gate. One of the mercenaries stood behind, gun pointing at the empty street and sometimes scanning the buildings around them, while another did the same thing on the opposite direction.

With his knee splashing against the foul-smelling liquid, Duncan started patting down the first ganger. The man had been shot cleanly through the side of the head, so the mercenary didn't have to dig through some gorey mess to find anything important inside the man's jacket. The first thing the nepleslian would notice on his shirt was that the man they had dropped was wearing the same Everyday armor that Jaina's crew was wearing, although without the durandium trauma plate so that he could comfortably wear it under the open jacket. As he looked further, he found a brick-sized radio tucked inside one of the pocket's as well as the trademark .45 pistol that every Nepleslian knew and loved, except that particular gun had probably found too much love from its previous owner, since most of the metal surfaces were scratched with taunt words and the upper part of the slide had three vertical scratches to it.

It was only when he started to pat down the second 'dead' ganger that he had noticed something off.

Instead of looking convincingly dead, the man was following Duncan with his one good natural eye, while the second artifical one focused and unfocused like a camera lens. Looking closer, the cause for him still being alive presented itself: the entire left side of his face had been replaced with heavy augmentics, and the low caliber, low velocity shot from the silenced weapon hadn't managed to penetrate that. Upon noticing that he had been discovered, the ganger stirred, which was followed by the electronic sound of something beeping several times. It took a fraction of a second for one of the mercenaries nearby to finish the job and unload his silenced weapon on the man, but the damage had already been done. As the gang member went limp for the last time, he let a small device roll out of his hand, some small kind of transmitter with only one button. Its function seemed to be pretty clear, since the lights from the two-story building across the warehouse started to turn on one by one.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compound, South Side

Duncan grabbed the radio as he searched the first man thinking they could use it once the fight started. He mentioned to the team, "Seems like they are using Everyday vests for protection so keep that in mind. No dice on a keycard so far." He felt it was going well so far as he moved on to the next downed body. That was when things went south. Duncan was no doctor by a long shot but even he knew the man should not be following him with his eyes as he searched him.

He was about to react and punch the man's lights out when he ended up jerking back slightly as a comrade ended the man for good. Of course beeping was never a good sign when trying to take down people with a tad of stealth. "Aw shit, boss, this guy has transmitted to the compound. I suspect they will be all over us very shortly. We should probably make some noise to draw them all this way," Duncan said as he stood looking over the wall towards the building. Sure enough the lights were turning on and that meant trouble. He moved to the door and fiddled with the radio, perhaps he could get a glimpse of what was being said or done. He looked to Jaina for further orders.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Inside the compound, Small building, 2nd story broom closet

Kendra was keeping silent as possible. Sneaking in was not as easy as she thought. Luckily the overall darkness and loud noises of Nepleslia outside helped. Nothing like a sporadic gun dire to hide sounds. Luckily there were not many people in the 2nd story of the target building, but in the 1st story there were enough of them to so she could not really get a good look-around. That was not great, since she could not confirm if the house had any basement. It most likely did, but it would be nice to know. At least she could leave a little present under one of the office tables in the 1st level of the building.

After she got up into 2nd story of the building, taking out the hard-drives off the computers was not as hard. She knew enough about electronics to check for any fail-saves on them too. It would be bad if she took our a drive and sparked and melted. Luckily nothing of that sort happened.

When done she found a small room to hide in. That was better than trying her luck and getting out again. The room looked like a broom closet, except there were no brooms. Instead there were few cans, judging by the smell they were full of kerosene or other flammable. That made her wonder a bit, why would they need something like this.

She did not have to wait too long, until comms went live and she heard hunters and mercenaries talking outside. The assault was about to begin.

"I am here Des," Kendra whispered into the comms. "I am on 2nd story, north side. Left a gift in office downstairs. Just give me a signal and I can make some fireworks happen. I have the drives by the way."

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compound, South Side

Jaina frowned as she saw her mercs deal with the guard. Cussing under breath she listened to the comms. They had to move fast now though.

"This is Jaina, one of the guards was not as dead as we though. Seems like he hit panic button. We are moving in Des." She reported to the leader of the hunters. "It is about to get loud."

"All right men, let's go in. Smooth and quick, drop anyone you see. We have a friendly in 2nd story so watch your fire." Jaina said to her mercenaries. She grabbed the gate and prepared to open it. "Duncan, take three men and go for the warehouse. You can provide covering fire from there or flank anything that comes out of it. The rest goes with me for the office building. All right? 3, 2, 1, move in"

With that Jaina opened the gate and let her mercs move in. The assault was about to start.

"Hey, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, that's what I say..." The hunter replied, hearing the chatter over his earpiece but laying off the mic until he had something important to say. As he followed Desmond, Rathe kept his handgun out and ready to fire, almost doing so as the floodlights of the compound sprang to life one by one.

"Speaking of worst, it looks like we're about to throw stealth out the window..." Rathe commented as his eyes became a solid silver color in response to the bright lights. The hunter pocketed his pistol and brought his Westech out, loaded and ready for action.

Funky City, Southern Shore District, North Side of Burnouts Compound
News of alarms from the other side prompted Danny to pick up the pace, heading over to the still struggling gangster trying to grab the doors. A bullet in the head stopped their struggle and he placed himself against the wall just beside the doors to the compound. He didn't want to be spotted by the floodlights or it'd be curtains most likely.

"Kendra," Danny radioed quietly, taking advantage of the throat microphone to whisper as he looked up at the wall and watched the spotlights brushing against the northern side of the compound and the doors. "I'll help cover your escape." He heard Jaina's chatter and heard yelling, gunfire, multiple boots against the ground.

He waited a few more moments for the assault and attention to remain on the south side. A burst of smoke had built up in Danny's suit, and he looked over to Desmond. "I'll provide smoke on the way in," Danny indicated as he walked past him and got ready to breach and clear, SMG against his shoulder and ready to move in, waiting for all the lights facing North to look the wrong way.

As he was standing ready to push the door open and move in, Rathe and Desmond could see that thanks to the reserve of smoke inside the SQUID suit, his figure had changed to be more feminine. An unfortunate side effect of the suit's creators, but the smoke had to go somewhere, plus it was good for concealing or changing the shape of the wearer's body for disguise purposes.

Funky City - Southern Shore District - Outside the compound, South Side

Duncan listened as Jaina gave the orders. He nodded in receipt upon hearing his assignment. He tried to recall the general layout within the walls. If he remembered correctly there was a lot of empty ground between the southern door and the warehouse door in the north. He hoped a window would present itself for easier access.

Duncan turned to the three mercenaries tasked to help him and said, "Listen up, we got get in to that warehouse asap. When we enter the compound follow me to the left, stay tight. We will take up overwatch at the corner of the warehouse and reassess from there. Watch each other's backs in there."

With that said Duncan swung his grenade launcher to sit tight against his back, checked to ensure a smoke grenade was handy and took up his CQBS. He stacked against the door and as Jaina wrenched the door open he moved in and left as planned.

He moved rapidly over to the jutting corner of the warehouse. Once there he would allow the men to set up a firing position and check to find out how sturdy this particular warehouse was.

Outside the compound, South Side

The floodlights turned on, casting their light on the open space between the warehouse and the office building, while somewhere inside the latter someone was yelling incoherently in rage. It took a few seconds for some of boarded windows on the second floor to have their covers punched out by the gangers, and once the bullets started flying, Jaina and the mercenary that stayed behind with her started to fire back with long bursts of automatic fire, keeping the Burnouts from shooting at the men that were moving.

Being the first to move, several puffs of dust trailed his footsteps as the gangers firing from inside the office missed him by the skin of his teeth. One of the mercenaries behind him wasn't so lucky, and staggered on the middle of the way as a stray bullet clipped him below the knee as he was about to get behind the corner of the warehouse, prompting the man to roll the rest of the way as more bullets zipped past the trio. As he arrived, the lights outside the warehouse also came on, and Duncan could also hear activity inside the building despite all the gunfire everywhere.

Outside the compound, North Side

Several lights from the nearby buildings started to turn on as their occupants came to watch the new spectacle that was taking place in their neighborhood. With his back pressed against the graffiti ridden wall, Desmond kept his eyes on the buildings as more and more people slowly woke up to find out what was causing all that noise in the middle of the night. While he wasn't pointing the gun at them, he still kept it on a low-ready, since there was no need to give anyone else reason to shoot at them, particularly when they didn't have a bounty on their heads like the gangers inside the walls.

"Do it," Desmond said over the comms after listening to Kendra before turning his head towards Danny. He wondered why none of the civilians -and calling them that was a stretch of the word in unimaginable proportions since people in Funky City were as likely to be as heavily armed as the gangers- had tried to take a shot at the three of them, which made him jokingly think that the Burnouts were too irrelevant to their social well-being or hated enough that they wouldn't bother to do that. " Danny, wait for the blast, then release the smoke. We're going in."

He waited until he heard the crumple of the explosion, but what happened instead was that every bounty hunter there actually felt it when it happened and the ground shook, followed by small cloud of dust that seeped over the and through the small crevices of the man-sized metal gate they were stacking up on. Desmond patted Danny's shoulder with a gloved hand to signal that he was ready.

"Go go! Rathe, after me!" he said, waiting for Danny to release the smoke. Throwing a grenade into one of the second floor windows was out of the question, but at least they would have the smoke to conceal them, and the thermal optics from his helmet could pierce through that anyway.

Funky City, Southern Shore District, North Side of Burnouts Compound
The man in camouflage nodded once they could feel sensation in their legs, and rounded the corner, smashing through the door with a well placed booting close to the doorknob as inky, mist-like smoke starting to pour from points close to the joints of the suit, into the fading cloud of burnt, rusted iron dust. In its place, a cloud of black smoke that Danny could see through, a digital overlay rendering it as a field of transparent halftone in space, opacity determined by how thick it was.

"Vai, vai!" Danny yelled in Lorath. It was a direction to 'go' as he directed while the last of the smoke billowed from the SQUID suit - its inky cover providing Desmond with concealment. "Poyd'iamo avat'sya!" He had his SMG raised immediately, looking at the windows and holes of the warehouse facility to his right for attackers, while moving forward to the office building. Once the smoke depleted and he emerged, he didn't waste any further time or his element of surprise and sprinted for the northern door of the office building.

Mid step, he ripped a flash grenade from his shoulder and prepared for a flash and breach into the office building. This didn't look like the main entrance, but all the same, it was worth making an entrance worthy of one. He held the grenade up towards Desmond, his intent clear for this side of the building.

Outside the compound - North Side

Rathe nodded to Desmond as the explosion subsided, running behind him with his 12 gauge at the ready. As Rathe heard Danny's muffled shouts in Lorath, a literal foreign language to the medic, the only thing giving Rathe a hint of Danny's plans was the flashbang he held up on display. Luckily, that was all he needed to know what was up.

Though it wasn't crystal clear, the silver film over the medic's eyes made the smoke in the air significantly less obstructive to his vision as Rathe scanned the area left of the door down the sights of his Westech, ready to unload on anything intending to do him harm.

Warehouse, South side

Duncan slammed into the wall of the warehouse. He took a moment to catch his breath after the short yet exciting dash into the compound. He looked over his squad mates and noticed that wound had taken a round but made it into cover.

"Position aquired," Duncan said on his comm. "Seems Mack took aa hit but he looks ok for now. Setting up overwatch on main buildings front door. Also, I hear movement inside the warehouse. Will try to gain entry."

Duncan turned to his team, "Mack and James, set up an overwatch on that main door. Frank, head to that back corner and set a charge. I want in to this warehouse."

Duncan wasn't particularly fond of leading others. He had always been better at following or thinking on the fly. This was his assigned position for now so he did his best. He hoped that all his comrades made it through this engagement. He briefly froze as the rush of loss rolled over him. So many had died on that planet. How could things have been different?

He shook out of his momentary paralysis and got back to the present. He readied his shotgun for when he could storm the warehouse.

Comlex - south gate

Jaine dropped behind the wall as the gate was open and the warehouse team was through. She grabbed her rifle, leaned out a bit and started firing short burst at the second story of the small building. It was just a suppressing fire to five the warehouse squad some breathing space.

"Duncan, wait with the warehouse breach. Me and my guys need to get to the office building first." Jaina said in the comms while she was changing magazines. "I need you to give us covering fire while we move. Pop a grenade or two in the south part of the second story. Remember we got a friendly inside, but she should be in north side. We will wait for your mark before we move."

Small building, 2nd story broom closet

Kendra grabbed hold of her pistol as the gunfire outside started. She could hear her team talking on the radio and wondered how things outside went. The snake woman did not feel like going outside just yet. Even with her people outside, there were still too many bad guys inside for her to handle alone. If there were just two or three, element of surprise might give her chance, but from what she could tell from the mass of gunfire on the level of the building, there were a lot more.

She grabbed the remote for the satchel, when Desmond gave the boom-order.

"All right folks," Kendra said into her mike. "Fire in the hole in three, two, one. BOOM!"

*CLICK* Kendra pushed the button and activated the satchel charge.