RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 4] A Pleasant Dinner

George stood little chance against the advancing tide of enemies from two different angle. It was, surprisingly, Claire whom made the first direct hit against George's thigh; the shot traveled right past the crook of Lenny's thick neck. George yelped and visibly jolted from his position, dropping his weapon and instinctively drawing up his arms to protect the rest of his exposed body as more paint rained down on him.

"ACK! OKAY! ALRIGHT ALREADY, SHIT! OUCH! GODDAMN, STOP! SHIT! YOU GOT ME ALREADY!"

---

With a satisfied smirk, Cassefin slowly crept back down into her hiding place as her conveniently-timed shots splattered messily across Stova's front. "What an inadequate team-member," Cassefin mused loudly from her secured position. "Didn't even attempt to work around a small random problem. Minus points for lack of creativit-EEK!"

Before Cassefin was able to finish her smug declaration of victory she caught notice of Isaac off to her side. His position gave him a clear shot between her barricades, and as the paint started flying in her direction, the Head Administrator curled downward, bracing for the impact. Isaac's attack was spot on and well placed...however, they did not impact upon their intended target. As the small paint-filled spheres flew towards the gap in Cassefin's defenses, yet another slab of nanomachine wall rose up from the ground, forming a tall, neat pillar directly between Cassefin and the barrage of stainballs. After the shots splattered softly against the surface, the pillar withdrew back into the floor, leaving nothing but a puddle of blue paint.

Cassefin, looking a little shaken but ultimately relieved, popped back out of her hiding place and returned fire on the spinning teacups. Her shots were somewhat random; Cassefin didn't know exactly where Isaac was, after all.

Well, he's here, and wearing their colors. Just shoot him already.

Tweak was slightly unnerved at the thought as soon as it crossed her mind, but she pulled the trigger on Lorcan anyway, painting him with a line of blue dots across his body.

"Sorry!" she squeaked, then turned and headed toward the other end of the Red Team's maze entrance. From the corner she saw Cassifin doing 'battle' with Isaac and Stovaa, leaving the H.A.'s back completely open...Tweak smiled. Double-checking behind her to make sure that Lorcan wasn't coming back at her for revenge, she hopped up onto the maze walls without much visible effort. There, she noticed Deacon performing the same maneuver and smiled. The Kohanian and Claire seemed to have their situation under control, so the 'spacer neko turned her attention to the other two remaining Red Team members.

After briefly (only fractions of a second) reviewing the data from Isaac and Stovaa's encounter with Cassifin, Tweak had a suspicion about how the 'random' barriers. If Headmaster Real was the one in control of them, then they reacted to her desire for removing cover for her opponent and protecting herself. So, if she was in charge of the barriers, even via mental link, the weakness would be that Cassifin would need to know there was a threat in order to block it. There was a chance that Tweak was wrong, but it wouldn't cause enough damage to the plan she was making that she couldn't adapt...

Okay. Keep moving, don't get caught, and we all go back to barracks happy, thought Tweak as she smiled to herself. She dropped to the floor again without a sound, letting her TacOpSys calculate Serra's reaction time from her database before making a straight-out dash toward Cassifin -- nearly becoming nothing more than a flicker of movement crossing the short distance between the maze and the admin. She wasn't within the visual range of Cass, so there shouldn't have been any warning. Nor was she firing at the Admin, so the barriers had no reason to come up...unless someone else was controlling them.

She came to a dead stop, a stiff breeze following her arrival by a second. Her rifle was held against the Admin's back, and her finger pulling the trigger before anyone's heart finished two beats.

I can gloat afterward...finish it _now_...

*thunkthunkthunk*

((OOC: I took Lycan up on that offer to off him. See OOC thread, page 73.))

Steady... Steady... Jen told herself as she aimed the rifle toward the H.A.'s cover, carefully waiting for a clear shot. Her cover then vanished from her leaving her out in the open, but instead of panicking she began to march forward from her low position, slowly placing one foot at a time. She knew she wasn't noticed yet, it seemed the H.A. was very distracted, especially when a wall formed up to protect her, not even in the middle area.

Finding a clear spot out in the open, she began to control her breath, going though the sequence that was taught in basic. Then when she thought she saw an opening she opened fire. The first shot being the most accurate, then a full spread now that her position was known. She then stood up to get a better vantage point and continued fire full auto until she ran out.

Isaac was ducked down behind the tea cups, he thought to himself for a moment, hoping he had hit the Head Administrator with one of his barrages of balls. " I.. better make sure," with that, he checked the cartridge on his gun and attempted to blind fire the pistol at the area where she had been, aiming downwards at where he thought she was located. Not noticing or even checking to see if anyone else would get in the cross fire. A blind shot, but hopefully enough to finish up the remains.

Pop, pop, pop! The barrage ended in a few seconds and with that and a burst of a violent battle cry. Issac darted out of the tea cups and past Stovaa's position, noticing he had been hit. He swished his way behind the last long barrier protecting the different sections of the arena. " Great, he's out, guess I'm on my own. I really hope I don't get shot." He quietly thought to himself, although mumbling it without noticing.

Yeah, I'm hit, thought Stovaa as the barrage ended. The Id-Sol waved at Isaac as he passed, the cogs of his brain turning and forming a system. He nodded towards where Cassefin was hidden. He spoke quietly, so even Isaac was barely able to hear him.

"Get ready, I'm got a plan..."

His gun clattered to the ground, and Stovaa raised his hands above his head, out of the game.

"Miss Montreal, I think I've been hit, but not sure if it's large enough to knock me out of the game. Would you please take a look and tell me if I'm out?" It was a very low trick, but he'd seen the barriers move up as Cassefin was moving, and was convinced she was cheating. Besides, he wasn't really able to see the damage, his goggles were coated in paint. If she appeared, Isaac would hopefully shoot her. If she didn't, he could be sure she was cheating and getting visual input from somewhere else.

Cassefin, preoccupied with her own targets, had her back turned to Tweak's advance. Almost instantly after Tweak prepared to fire, however, there was a burst of movement from beneath her feet. A pale white pillar burst from the floor directly below Tweak's stainball gun, jerking the weapon from her grasp and upward just in the nick of time; Tweak's shots flew a hair's breadth away from the top of Cassefin's head. However, that was not all...yet another pillar also formed directly underneath Tweak's back foot, shooting upwards like a spring-loaded trap which sent the Freespacer soaring overhead.

The Head Administrator turned around with a confused look on her face just in time to see Tweak careen over her head. Cassefin didn't have time to ponder why that was happening, however, as more paint came flying from multiple directions. Cassefin's calm determination was quickly turning into a frantic fight to figure out what exactly was going on as she knelt down and covered her head behind her omnipresent barriers.

Stovaa said:

"Miss Montreal, I think I've been hit, but not sure if it's large enough to knock me out of the game. Would you please take a look and tell me if I'm out?"

Click to expand...

Cassefin immediately stood up from her position, face angry once more. "Of course you're out, you moron! You're covered in red paint, and you only need a quarter-sized dot to count as out! I hit you with every single one of my fourteen shots! Don't you DARE try and cheat, just because I got you fair and square!" Apparently, even amidst the confusion and combat, Cassefin still wasn't strong enough to resist pointing out the faults of her workers.

Well, now, that wasn't expected...

Tweak didn't even have time to get the thought formed before she acted on impulse and reached out, grabbing the edge of the pillar Headmaster Real was peering around, halting her flight and flinging herself down to land behind Stovaa. Her feet hit the floor with enough force to make foot-shaped impressions in any material less dense than steel while her arm nearly wrenched itself in the process of redirecting the momentum the trap had given her. Now she was in danger of failing her objective and was vulnerable with the loss of her weapon...her TOS immediately took in the changed situation and confirmed the suspicion that someone ELSE was operating Montreal's 'random barriers', and also identified and flagged the gun Stovaa had just set down.

Snatching up Stovaa's gun, Tweak snap-aimed at Cassifin's head and fired again, barely thinking about her actions enough to aim above Montreal's eyes rather than risk hitting her mouth or neck. Rather than wait for confirmation of the hit, Tweak kept moving while continuing to take single-shots whenever she saw an opening, this time tracking the movements of the floor. How did it move so fast? she wondered, taking a couple of shots at Serra as suppression.

Claire emerged from the maze just in time to see Tweak go flying from a newly arisen pillar. Watching the antics of those trying to get at the Administrator, a small idea from the earlier scuffle formed in her mind. She glanced back over her shoulder at Deacon, "Hey, do you think you could get up on those pillars and shoot down at her? Like you did with George? I'm pretty sure we aren't going to be able to get her at this elevation and I doubt the pillars expand horizontally. I'll go after the Elysian girl." She paused to spare another glance at the paint flying around Cassefin. "And I think they've got her occupied fairly well. What do you say, hon?" Claire flashed a smile at the Kohanian as she paused behind a wall which put her out of Cassefin's sight.

Serra, who being one that tires quickly of these non-mentally stimulating games, was just barely keeping an eye on the antics as they unfolded. She kept her gun near her person, but instead of holding down a suppressive fire position as would be expected of someone entrenched as she, instead she was just keeping it on the ground near her feet as she watched the match with detached boredom. Her only actions were ducking back under her wall when Tweak fired off some paint pellets at her direction, some splatter getting close enough to touch her hair.

Leaping down from on top of the walls, Deacon moved like a shadow behind Claire, watching any side passages they came to. He didn't have the benefit of Tweak's TOS, so he was struggling to remember who was still in the game on the other team. There was the Administrator, and the Harpy, but was that all? Surely his team would take more casualties than just Claire's friend...

The hyena was pulled from his thoughts by his comrades question, and after a moment of thought on it, he would nod his head.

"I should be able to do it again, but being in the center of the battlefield, it would put me in a lot more vulnerable situation. If I must be a casualty to ensure my forces win the war, I will give my life for that victory."

Looking back into the center area, he watched the pillars come up from the ground to protect Cassefin, flinging Tweak end over end and her weapon flying out of her hands and clattering towards where Claire and he stood observing.

"That will make things difficult. It seems the battlefield favors the Administrator. If that is true, we need to come up with a plan that will force the Administrator into a trap that her battlefield cannot compensate for. Perhaps it is not us, who should come to her, but she, who should come to us. We should pick off all of her support, and then force her into an area that she will be at a disadvantage in."

Falling back slightly, Deacon sat down within one of the side passages and thought.

"I know from my training in your military, you are taught to press an advantage. Like now, we have the numbers, and Cassefin is pinned down in a single location, but look at all the area she has to work with. She is in the open of a battlefield she can control to protect her. We need to get her in the maze, and into on of these dead end passages," He patted the walls on either side of him. "And that way if she puts up a wall, all it will do is force her into a smaller and smaller box. Then, once she traps herself within, THEN we fire down at her like shooting a...how does the saying go? Shooting barrels full of fish?"

Keziah stared as Tweak almost went flying.

No wonder she was so confident. It wasn't in her shooting ability--which was still pretty good, given--but in the nano-floor. Figures. Well, all she could hope was nobody else on her team was going to play fair.

Then again, she wasn't sure she wanted them to win against Montreal. Who knew what would happen if they did.

But if they all lost, that could be just as bad. Or worse, since she seemed the gloating type.

All that aside, she pulled at her hair, dragging out bits of paint that had semi-dried. "I really need a shower," she muttered to absolutely nobody in particular.

"It's 'fish in a barrel' dear. But you are correct about that... We can't get her where she is..." Claire paused a moment. "Still, probably should take care of her last teammate first so we can focus on her." She waited a second more then moved discreetly to another one of the 'solid' walls, closer to Serra. "Luckily," She continued, "I think our administrator is pretty easy to entice, seeing how she has already responded to a taunt." She looked back over at the rest of her team keeping their boss busy.

Claire had taken note of where Tweak had fired at before moving against Cassefin, and tried to map out in her mind where the fixed barriers were and which ones could be controlled. Hopefully whoever was controlling them was busy keeping Ms. Montreal safe from attack and wouldn't notice her advancing on Serra. She looked back over at Deacon, "Right, let's 'pick off her support', yes?" She crouched as she moved from cover to cover, trying to get in a position to get a clear shot at the Elysian. She paused about halfway to see if her ally decided to help her with this part. Deacon's plan made sense. Hopefully Cassefin hadn't seen how they had attacked George and would come after them once they baited her.

Nodding his head a few times at her correction of his speech, and then the idea she brought up, Deacon followed close behind, but never close enough that a stray round meant for Claire, would hit him, and never directly behind, always zigging and zagging as me moved quick through any open areas to remain near enough that her whisper would reach his highly tuned ears.

"I think your plan has merit, and if the entirety of our team focused on a single target, it would be easier to get our prey." He growled softly to her. It wasn't that he was angry, just that his 'whisper', came with a rumbling undertone.

Tweak's reactions and subsequent shots were blindingly fast; Cassefin only had enough time to stare blankly as the disguised neko landed in front of her, grabbing Stovaa's dropped weapon and firing at her again. However, yet again, more thin slabs of white wall jutted quickly and accurately between Cassefin and Tweak's shots. After the first blue bullet splattered against the slab, the Head Administrator squeaked in weak surprise and ducked back down. She didn't stay that way for long as Tweak continued to fire upon her position, quickly standing low to the ground and running frantically back to the center of the field away from Tweak.

The nanofloor continued to provide her with unconventional cover for the duration of her run, but it seemed to have trouble interpreting where exactly to raise up; several of the risen pillars were a few inches off kilter, the stray shots not hitting Cassefin nor the slabs, and the pillars of what becoming more sparse the longer she ran. By the time she reached the center of the playing field Cassefin was out of breath and seemingly without any cover, looking quite shaken and disheveled by the previous events but still determined.

As Cassifin moved, only the unpredictable firing spread of the stainball gun and the rapidly-forming barriers spared her a bath of blue from Tweak. As she fired, Tweak kept moving, both to get a better angle around whatever new barrier had appeared and to keep herself from being surprised by a trap like before.

But, by the time Cassifin reached her stopping point, Tweak had run out of stainballs. The 'spacer neko lowered her gun, staring at the administrator while breathing hard herself in an attempt to cool down. The burst of rapid-pace 'combat' had made her internal temperature rise uncomfortably close to concerning levels, but it was not yet in the orange zone and still quite far from red-lining. She still took whatever time was given to cool down, in case this encounter decided to stretch out longer than anticipated, which it already was showing a tendency for.

Meanwhile Tweak was also tracking Claire and Deacon's arrival to the current conflict zone. Her teammates seemed to have a plan and she noticed their movement toward Serra, silently wishing them fortune to their goal...all this, though, Tweak 'saw' without looking way from where Headmaster Real gathered herself. And she needed a weapon...

Her own gun was where? Reviewing the trajectory, Tweak noticed it was laying on the edge of a balcony above the court. She hazarded a glance up, and lifted her eyebrows at the spectator standing over it before returning her eyes to Cassifin.

Jen ceased fire when she had lost visual of the H.A. but continued to watch her path. Staying low she looked about to find a wall that would conceal herself. The Nepleslian was excited that it seemed her side was going to win, and aimed her paintball gun right at the H.A. before something dawned on her, Would shooting the H.A. actually get me a transfer off the station? I mean she certainly seems the kind of boss to do that... is she? Hmm ok then I guess I'll just put pressure on her instead of finishing it.

Jen then stood up from cover and fired a spread as distraction until she would run out of ammo, none of it meant to hit but to drag attention to herself.

Cassefin stood and stared blankly, slightly hunched over as if expecting to be pelted by the (surprisingly aggressive) Freespacer standing a yard or two away. When Tweak lowered her weapon, however, Cassefin lifted her head a little, looking slightly confused by the movement...but it didn't take her long to realize that the weapon pointed away from her meant less chance of being struck. Huffing back with new resolve, the Head Administrator raised her own weapon and began firing at Tweak.

She was able to get off a few stainball rounds before catching the reports from Jen's weapon off in the distance. Cassefin ducked instinctively, unaware that Jen's fire was a mere distraction, and began running back towards the Red starting area where George and Lenny had just arrived. George had a few blue stains on his chest while Lenny, grinning dumbly, was absolutely drenched in blue paint. Cassefin turned about half-way between the center of the playing field and the Red starting point and fired back at Jen. Jen's barrier, fortunately, was still standing firm.

Deacon watched all of this, taking special note that whenever Cassefin was in danger, the playing field seemed to rise to protect her. It was from this realization that a truely wicked plan began to form in his mind.

Turning towards Claire, Deacon moved behind a barrier so that he could not be shot, and waved a paw for the other's attention.

"Better yet, it would seem that if we are to win this, we need to get the Head administrator out, as the playing field seems to rise to protect her. I wish to use this against her. For if she were to be put into danger, but the floor would be unable to protect her, what would she do. For example, what would she do if someone got close enough to get ahold of her? I would be willing to find out the answer to this by volunteering to take the Administrator down. I have experience in hunting elusive prey, after all..."

The hyena grinned almost wickedly as he looked around the corner to the cowering Elysian and Administrator.

Claire listened to Deacon offer to pounce the administrator. While she had no doubt of it's amusement factor, she had a couple of doubts. "Well sure, but if the wall is protecting her, who is going to shoot her while she's pinned? I don't imagine that she'd go for anything less than being boxed in at that point." Of course, if she left a side open, then that'd be a different story. "And also... you sure that's a good idea, hon? The girl's got quite a reputation for her... temper. She may likely just declare that as being 'unfair' and make further movements to make our lives, yours in particular probably, miserable." As for her first complaint, Tweak could likely remedy that problem as she could jump high enough to get at her. But of course, Claire didn't know that. "If you want to, I'll help you corner her, but I'm just warning you of how she might react post-game to your tackle." She paused then gave a slightly hesitant smile, "Besides, don't want you to injure the poor girl by accident."

She glanced over her shoulder at the barrier seperating her and Serra. "It's your choice dear. Either we finish mopping up the rest of her team first or we can go with your suggestion. I'll go with your intuition." Of course, if they went after Serra first, they could still put Deacon's idea afterwords. But Claire wasn't the type to lead anyhow.

Cassfin's shots, of course, were futile. Tweak was tempted to try batting them back at the Admin, but abandoned the plan almost immediately because the stainballs were traveling fast enough to make a catch without breaking them risky, even for her. So she settled for dodging them instead.

The spectator in the meantime had picked up Tweak's rifle and held it by the strap over the railing, as if teasing her to come and get it. It was just out of her range. Even though most of the high points on the field were near enough that she could make a leap from one of them and reach it, that would make Tweak very vulnerable by turning her back on both Cass and Serra. She finally just shook her head as if disappointed at the spectator and looked around for another discarded gun.

Kez had taken hers with her. Deacon had lost one and was currently carrying another. Lorcan was still nowhere to be seen. Elliot was using his, Stovaa's was empty. George might have had his...Tweak glanced toward the short blue-painted fellow, checking for his rifle.

Maybe she could could just get close enough to remove the Headmaster's weapon from her possession?