RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 5] A Unique Encounter

With the target being so close, Cyril's pistol rounds directed at Marrisa Cranker were mostly spot on. However, the bullets themselves which would have normally collided messily with the Vinross Yu-Cranker CEO's tender, beautiful face seemed to pass beyond her visage, only to produce a small amount of sparks. For but a moment, Marrisa's face flickered as each round passed into it, revealing a previously unseen facemask similar to that of the rest of the Uniques; the CEO's head from the neck above was apparently but a simple projection no doubt made in the same model-minded fashion that Marrisa Cranker designed all of her armorsuits to follow.

The confined space that Cyril had led himself into, combined with the blinding speed Marrisa had vaulted towards him with, left the CSS member little time to react after firing off his pistol. The armor-clad CEO used the force of her advance to place her elbow squarely into his chest, only to grab him and throw him to the side against the wall of the crate. Finally, her assault ended as she drove her forearm forward into the groove between Cyril's helmet and chestplate, pressing the exposed black nanosuit covering his neck back against the crate wall...not enough to outright break the neck, but just enough for Cyril to begin to feel an uncomfortable need for a deeper breath of air.

From their position, Cyril could see the other four Uniques quickly advancing on Keziah's body. Their weapons trained on the motionless woman, they quickly separated her firearms from her before looking at Marrisa, apparently accepting her as their new makeshift squad captain. She exchanged slow, snide glances between Cyril and Keziah...but before she was able to give the order to execute the lot of them, a voice interrupted.

"Hold on."

---

Deacon's aim, through either luck, skill, or distance between shooter and target, was true; his HHG round planted a hybrid round square into the Unique at the head of the small squad. The force knocked her back and she released an audible gasp, the round not piercing the supposed weak area of their suits, but obviously generating enough force to generate a nasty area of bruising. The second Unique in line, once again, used her should to keep their braver comrade at the front still standing against the assault.

As Speedy pulled the trigger of his CSS:VW, there was, initially, no responce other than a low hum. This sound, however, over the course of a short few seconds, reverberated into a pitch that passed beyond normal human hearing. Then, quite suddenly, a blast of bright-blue energy much, much larger than the original burst forwards from Speedy's weapon. The heat from the shot was so intense that Speedy, as well as the other CSS members near him, immediately felt an intense warmth pass through through their very armorsuits. As the shot traveled down the hallway, the stark-white floor and wall panels became soft and melted as the shot passed over them, some areas revealing a grayish metallic plating from beneath the aesthetic white paneling.

The first Unique was still reeling from the intense pressure that had just hit her throat. The second was, for all intents and purposes, stuck and off-balance in her attempt to lean into the firsts' back to keep her propped up. Neither of them had enough time to leap out of harms way, and as such were engulfed by the bright blue wave of plasma energy. Captain Bell, her face both alarmed and enraged, was able to pull the third Unique in line away from the line of fire, throwing the both of them against the opposing wall as the supercharged plasma shot passed by them, continued unabated down the hallway a few yards before colliding with the wall with a vibrant show of lights, replacing the wall with a large, nasty-looking hole of glowing orange molten metal and black smoke.

As the battle raged on, Serra's impressive handiwork with the door panel slowly but surely began to take effect. The bulkhead doors began grinding shut...but at an incredibly slow pace. An unforeseen setback, perhaps even an unavoidable one given the condition of the panel and lack of the Station's primary power sources.

The attack, while both surprising and effect, only paused Captain Bell's advance for but a moment. Immediately, the two remaining Uniques produced objects from compartments on the miniature packs on the small of their backs and, in unison, threw them towards the door. One of them had their aim off slightly, the object clanging against the frame of the door and rolling off into the center of the hallway. The other landed on the floor, rolling awkwardly through the bulkhead and stopping to rest a yard or so behind Serra, Kokuten and Claire, just as the Elysian finished reworking the panel. As the object came to rest, the shape and size alone immediately gave away the purpose. Fist sized, cylindrical and few outer features...a grenade.

---

The voice Cyril heard was one he had heard before. As it was said, the speaker appeared at the opening of the crate. It was Laj Vinross Yu...still in his business attire the squad had seen him in before, looking quite relaxed despite the combat that had just taken place. The slick-looking businessman inspected Keziah's unconscious body inquisitively for a moment before turning to Marrisa and Cyril. "Bring him over here," Laj said, taking a seat on one of the smaller crates behind him as he reached into his suit jacket. The CEO produced an all-to-familiar handgun from before, as well as a pack of cigarettes and lighter. Taking a single cigarette from the pack and igniting it with the ornate lighter, he motioned for the other Uniques to do the same with Keziah.

"Of course," Marrisa said, glaring smugly at her pinned captive as she forcefully removed his pistol and rifle with her free hand. After she found him to be disarmed of the two weapons, the armorsuited CEO released the pressure on Cyril's neck, only to throw him to the floor in front of Laj's feet, to the right of where the other four Uniques had placed Keziah's injured body. Marrisa and the other Uniques then took position around the small group of three, with Cranker taking position next to her fellow CEO.

Laj sighed, letting the plume of white cigarette smoke roll from his nose before leaning down in his seat and staring directly into Cyril's eyes. It was somewhat alarming at how casual and calm Laj was in a situation such as this; no doubt the Vinross Yu-Cranker CEO had been in a situation such as this many times before.

"Now," Laj spoke, his eyes not leaving Cyril's. "I will only ask you this once. Are you carrying a recording device of any kind? And, before you answer, I would like to inform you that I will know if you aren't telling the truth."

"Well, I kinda got one built into me skull. Straight dump o' the video from me eyes. But seeing as you lot o' traitors are gonna to be evacuat'n it once you're done gloat'n, I don't see the problem." Cyril said bitterly, picking himself up mostly to spite Canker. It would have been nice to manage to get Kaz to something resembling safety before this part rolled around. For a moment, he considered punctuating his sentence by spitting in Laj's face. But really, that was kinda petty.

Instead, Cyril's neon eyes glared back into Laj's own. It was just as well that the cold metal didn't do anything to convey is inner emotions. Now that he had a chance to think about something other then how to live for another few seconds (It was kinda out of his hands now) he was starting to hate himself for not telling Kaz to fall back when he still had the chance. He was the one who had led them into this situation. Right now her safety was in his hands.

And he didn't think that he could do anything to guarantee it.

Consciousness came back slowly, as light seeping into Keziah's eyes. Dim lighting from the back-ups. The brighter, pin-point glare of a lighter, then a cigarette. Laj's voice was far, far away, his question below her understanding. Cyril's response, too, was kind of underwater, warbling together so as to be complete nonsense. The others she became aware of more quickly, the women standing all around them, most of them armed.

She breathed in deeply, and shocked herself to sitting as a ragged string of coughs overtook her. The pain made her double over, and she fell onto her side, curling up foetal, her body shudding as her coughing continued for several more moments.

Her whole body ached and she felt fevered, sweat sheening her face. She looked up at Laj as she brought herself under control. "Guess you got us."

Tweak was nothing if not a speed-reader. And she doubted what she read, but it was a weak doubt because of how it was written.

Patterns in the encoding of the words that she had noticed in her thoughts, the handwriting, the...

She looked down at her chest, then pulled out the crystaline tags around her neck.

How long have I been like this? she thought with a pit growing in her abdomen. So many tags...so many pages. Months, at least. She held up the first tag to a glowing conduit and noted the frosty etching on its surface, but took hope when she noticed that it was one of two with such designs in it. The rest of the tags were blank. Though that didn't rule out more books, at least she hadn't had enough to fill up the tags, especially since she apparently could fit a ton of information on just one.

Tweak slipped the tags back under her shirt and put the book back into its holder at her leg, then donned the CSS suit again. I abandoned friends. I've got to get back!

---

The situation had worsened in her absence. The team was stuck with a weapon that was powerful. And the two who had taken to the vents were in dire trouble. Tweak took in the situation as she listened to the ruckus echoing through the vents, getting louder as she neared the scene. Gunfire...that was good, at least the main group was holding ground. She didn't hear anything good from the direction of the bay, however, so the neko went to investigate.

Staying out of sight, she watched Cyril and Kez from the hole they had fallen through in the vent. The double-crossing CEO duo seemed unusually pleased at the capture of the CSS squadmates, especially since the Uniques had slaughtered everyone else. Why hadn't they finished off Cyril and Keziah yet?

Wait. The CEOs? Tweak frowned, then lifted an eyebrow. This could be a trap. But what if it wasn't? Was Yu really that confident? Only one way... Tweak took a breath behind her sealed helmet visor and took off her glove, then looked down at her palm.

The skin split and a bright red object pushed out, becoming silvery as the red blood retreated back into her palm. It was a rough construction job, but the blade was sharp and pointed which was all she needed. Meanwhile two tendrils of red cut through the material over the hemosynth ports on her hips, but then flattened out, looking like patches of red on her suit. But they would be there if she needed them.

Please let this work.

Her decent calculated, the idiot neko jumped down from the vent and landed behind Laj Vinross Yu, immediately grabbing at his arm to pull it behind his back so his hand would be between his shoulder blades in a submission hold. The crude, but effective, knife in her other hand went for his neck, and she had enough control that no matter how he moved she wouldn't let it cut him until she wished it to. What no one but her knew, though, was that the knife was still attached to her palm where the metal was blended with a hemosynthed connective tissue. Before making sure she had him (though it should be impossible for her not to, unless he was not really there), Tweak's usually soft voice rang out into the bay.

"Drop your weapons, NOW!"

"Whoa!" Noboru shouted as he watched Speedy's single burst slam into the first two Uniques, then explode brilliantly against the back wall. "I guess that's how you do it in Nepleslia!" Noboru shouted as he withdrew the empty plasma cannister from the back of his gun and discarded it onto the floor. He slammed another magazine into the Variable Weapon and turned, sighting in on Captain Bell. Having been caught in the process of reloading, he hadn't noticed Bell and her cronie throwing the grenades, and was in no position to point out such a fact.

He crouched in the doorway, leaned out and held down the trigger, firing a five-shot burst at Captain Bell's torso. He then leaned back in and waited for the inevitable return volley to pass him.

The Kohanian waited to see the effects of his shot, and seeing that once again nothing that they were armed with was good enough to take down the Uniques, he ducked himself back into the assembly room full of machinery and grit his teeth, hissing breaths in and out through the predatory fangs.

"This is getting ridiculous..." He growled out to Noburo, then heard a comment about something going on outside the room. By the time Deacon got back into a safe watching position, the bolt had already hit the other wall, and two Uniques lay injured in it's path of destruction.

"Well good, now if only our whole team had tho-"

He saw the motion from the Uniques, and the grenades flying through the air. Inhaling sharply, the male did what he thought best and would take one for the team. He sprinted out of his hiding spot, that insane burbling laugh rolling from his lips as he sprinted towards the slowly closing doors, attempting to snatch at least one of the explosives out of the air, while bobbing and weaving back and forth as he ran to make a tougher target. His ultimate goal would be to toss one of the grenades back, while kicking the one that rested between his squadmates back into the Unique's side of the door, at the same time. And all of this while trying to stay ducked behind what little of the doors were closed.

"Ouch..." was all Lance was able to think to say after watching the poweful blast slam into the Uniques, "Wonder if they even felt it hit them..." he pondered aloud before hearing the clang of the grenades.

Upon hearing and seeing where the grenades were going, he froze for a split second before taking cover on his side of the hallway, believing that unless they had exceptionally long timers, he would be perfectly safe if he were to wait just a few seconds for them to explode.

Tweak's sudden attack caught the group largely by surprise. With his gun hand locked and his other hand occupied by the ornate lighter, Laj had nowhere to go after Tweak subdued him, threatening the rest of his foul group with the knife at his throat. Laj let out an audible breath of surprise, the cigarette in his mouth throwing out a small plume with the exclamation of surprise while Marrisa Cranker and the other four Uniques all stood motionless, their attention turned to the new adversary. Or, rather, turned their attention to Laj Vinross Yu.

"Drop your weapons, NOW!"

For a moment, Laj did nothing, his eyes darting around from face to face. It was not long, however, before he looked directly at Marrisa...and simply raised his eyebrows expectantly. The Uniques did not drop their weapons. Much to the contrary, within a split second the four armor-clad women shuffled towards the two other captured CSS members on the floor, two Uniques to a CSSman, holding their weapons at the back of their heads. Marissa herself turned towards Tweak and Laj, a serious, unamused look spreading across her volumetrically-displayed face.

"Let's m'ot do anything hasty m'ow," Laj said, his speech skewed and distorted from the cigarette still in his mouth. "How about we m'ork out some sort of...deal?"

"Fuck, is it ever good to see you Tweak." Cyril said as the freespacer appeared out of almost nowhere. He'd have almost been freaked out over Tweak's ability to more or less materialize out of thin air if he weren't so overwhelmingly glad to see her. He hadn't really be expecting any sort of help from the rest of the squad, what with most of the squad of Uniques filing up the stairs to go and try and kill them.

"Not so smug now, are you?" Cyril muttered, as Laj almost immediately tried to talk is way out of getting the closest shave of his life. Typical slimy corporate bastard. But the bastard still had and advantage in the form five well armed and ridiculously over armored women still sanding around and looking unimpressed. Well, maybe there was something to do about that.

"How about you show an earnest o' good faith first? Why not have these four lovely ladies put down their guns and got take a seat under your very fine ship? I'm sure that Miss Canker here could handle the lot o' us if it came down to it, eh?"

((Moonie, I'm just pointing this out because it may become important later, but Cyril had already stood up before Tweak dropped in on us.))

"Nice shot Speedy! Now lets fall back to..." Jen was cut off by a round object flying by her vision, it flew by like it was in slow motion, "Shit, Grenade!" she yelled out while keeping her head down.

Speedy was a bit shaken by the weapon's sudden blast, but he was impressed by it effectiveness. For once, they had some kind of weapon that would, quite literally, blow through the Uniques' armour. When he was readying for a second shot he saw the Captain throw her grenade.

Speedy was many things, but stupid isn't one of them, as he dive behind whatever cover he could find; if explosives training teaches you anything, explosions are much worse in enclosed spaces.

Kokuten breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the doors were beginning to close. Though, his breath cut short when he caught sight of the spherical object rolling in. In his corner of vision, Kokuten could only discern it was either a head or a grenade, and sorely hoped it was just a head that Speedy had shot off. His eyes turned white as he realized that it was a grenade.

In but a second, he saw Deacon moving to catch what seemed to be another grenade. Even the Kohanian seemed to approach him, he dropped his rifle an spun around, picking up the grenade and underhanding it towards the door like a groundball. With his heart pumping so quickly, the Captain dizzied himself and would end up losing his balance to fall on the floor

Keziah's vision tunneled as the Uniques grabbed her and hauled her onto her knees. One of them tore off her helmet, replacing it with the barrel of one of the rifles. The xaser, she saw, was behind Cyril.

She wasn't daring like them. She didn't speak, just rested her hands on her knees, and waited. This wasn't the time to die. Certainly not the way or the place she would've wanted it. She clenched her artificial hand into a fist, just waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Laj, mouth slightly agape with the cigarette in his mouth, gave Cyril a dry, unamused look. The Unique behind Cyril immediately kicked the backs of his knees while simultaneously bopping him in the back of his helmeted head with the butt of her xaser rifle.

"Shut up," she said simply.

The Vinross Yu-Cranker CEO continued to display silence as he passed sidelong glances between the faces around the room, awaiting some sort of answer from his captor. Marrisa Cranker, on the other hand, was looking positively perturbed.

Okay, they weren't putting their guns down.

Do I have a Plan B? she thought. No, unless you count "Find another way out" a Plan B.

That'll do.

"Cyril, Kez, close your eyes."

The spots of blood over her hemosynth ports slithered under her suit in tendrils, tiny spikes poking up every few inches but not puncturing the material.

"Mister Yu, I offer five seconds for them to put down their weapons.

"Four."

"Three."

They would expect an attack at either zero or just before it. So she didn't attack then. She attacked sooner.

T+ 0.00 seconds...

Tweak's TOS kicked her perception speed into high gear and she milked every nanosecond of it. Four Uniques plus Cranker and Yu, six targets in all with one of the high-priority targets completely shelled away in armor. Cranker would have to be saved for last, then.

T+ 0.05 seconds...

The neko's hold on Yu's arm tightened, squeezing and twisting so his forearm's bones should shatter, if not leave that arm a twisted mess. Nothing life-threatening, but no sense leaving him able to use that gun he had around. Two swift kicks with a booted foot, one to the back of each knee, were also meant to remove his knees from their joints to keep the CEO from running or even standing.

At the same time the tendrils of hemosynthed blood sharpened and tore through Tweak's under-suit, clothes, and boots, leaving the plates of armor to drop to the ground at the same time she activated her stealth. To everyone else, her suit had just dropped to the ground, shredded and empty. The helmet remained for a touch longer, a branch from her shoulder tendril pulling it off her now-invisible head. The neko hadn't put on her trademark hat today, so once her outerwear was gone she was effectively out of sight.

She mentally winced, but didn't slow down. I really liked those clothes...

T+ 0.50 seconds...

As her clothing fell, the tissue securing her knife to her palm was severed, the portion embedded in the knife turning to ash the moment the connection with her body was cut. She flung the knife as hard as she could at one Unique's gun barrel in an attempt to knock it off target and buy at least another half-second. Didn't matter whether the knife punctured the barrel and blocked it or just hit blunt-end-first and moved it out of the way, either one was fine with her. The force of the throw would have driven the blunt end into a brick wall like a dart into corkboard, though.

T+ 0.72 seconds...

The knife gone, she planted a bare foot at the small of Yu's back and tried to power-kick him at the Uniques covering Keziah.

((More to come. I figure one to two seconds before anyone can react sufficiently, I just need Moon's okay that Yu's been injured and rendered a projectile and given a status on the movement of Cranker's gun before continuing ^_^;; Right now, everything is in slow-mo for Tweak. If anything sounds fishy or god-moddish, let me know in the OOC thread before reacting to it and I'll be checking it first thing when I wake up.

EDIT: Changed to "Unique's" gun and corrected the misspelling of Marrisa's name.))

Leaning against the left hand wall, opposite of where Serra was working, Deacon noticed Kokuten's motion, and nodded his head in thanks for the commander's help in ridding the area of explosives. Then came the question he dreaded to ask himself. 'now what?'.

Taking an all to precious deep breath, he forced himself to slow down and think about what had worked, and what hadn't. HHG rounds, no. Weapons fire from the provided weaponry, no. Canting his head to the side slightly, he noticed one of the other soldiers, the name escaped him for the moment, and the shine of the lights off the metal plates. Metal. His sword.

Looking up slightly, the hyena leaned against the door.

"Hey Bell! I have a question for you! What drives you forward on the battlefield when your comrades fall before you? Is it pride? Is it the recognition? Or is it the honor that comes with defending a way of life? I have a wager I would like to make with you, are you a gambling woman?"

Then came the most difficult part of all. The waiting.

Deacon's naturally unique dexterity allowed him the precious seconds it took to repel the thrown grenades by the skin of his teeth. The two explosives detonated roughly at the same instant as they sailed down the hallway, showering the hallway with metal fragments and intense heat. Fortunately, most of the CSS members had taken sanctuary behind the ridges of the doorways, only a few scraps of shrapnel passing beneath the slowly closing doorway.

Captain Bell and her sole remaining Unique had but to turn away, crouch and cover themselves, the fragmentation grenades' lethal spray of shredding bits bouncing harshly off of their bodies. They remained like that for a moment, taking notice to the grinding, closing doorway to their intended targets but momentarily without an idea of what to do.

When Deacon presented Captain Bell with his talk of a wager, Bell's face pulled into a wry, bitter smile as she steadied her xaser pistol at the doorway where Deacon had just ducked into.

"Why don't you come out here and find out, puppy dog?"

---

Laj, still at relative ease as he proposed a deal to his captor, choked in sudden pain as Tweak attempted to displace his shoulder and dislocate his knees. He had little time or opportunity to retaliate, falling forward with the force of Tweak's blows with a grunt.

Tweak's blade, thrown at the weapon of one of the Uniques standing behind Cyril, sank into the barrel of her rifle with relative easy. The Unique was able to withstand the force of the throw, the weapon training upwards then back down as she corrected her aim towards the back of Cyril's head...and pulled the trigger. The shot, however, never made it out of the barrel of the gun, blocked by the thrown knife. Once the Unique heard the shot, it took her a few moments to gather that nothing had actually happened.

The other Uniques, surprised by the sudden manhandling of their employer, placed their sights on the CSS-suited security guard and let loose a hail of retaliatory fire, taking great care to avoid shooting too close to Laj Vinross Yu. Most of their fire was, however, directed at the empty pile of shed armor Tweak had left behind.

As Tweak placed her bare foot against Laj's back, in an attempt to push him into the Uniques standing over Keziah, she would take notice to an intense movement happening off to the side just as he kick made contact. Marrisa, clad in her armorsuit, had miraculously become wise to Tweak's sudden assault in the few split seconds it took, even as the disguised neko shed her armor to take on her cloaked form. Utilizing a pair of external thrusters on the leg portions of her suit, Marrisa vaulted towards Tweak, hefty armored forearm extending to catch the cloaked neko's throat.

Cyril obliged Tweak, figuring that she had some Freespacer implant or a squirreled away flash grenade she'd gotten somewhere that would make it very unpleasant for people to keep their eyes open. His cybernetics might make it through something like that unscathed. But knowing how expensive the things were to fix, he wasn't keen on giving it a try. But instead of a flash seen through closed eyelids, there was just a gasp from Laj's direction. By the time he opened his eyes again three seconds later, the Uniques were going town on a pile of armor plates behind the stunned CEO.

Whatever had happened, Cyril didn't waste any of the time Tweak had given them and lashed his tail viciously across the ground, hoping to knock the Uniques to the ground. It didn't have the quite the same mass as a swept foot, but it was still a long, heavy tendril of metal and composites whipcracking under the feet of the Uniques standing behind him. He'd even managed to sweep it far enough to the right to get under the feet of one of the Uniques behind Kaz, though having to pull up short to avoid drubbing Kaz in the process meant that it might not work as well as it did for the ones behind him.

As his tail pulled back closer to himself, Cyril spun on his haunches and launched himself at the Unique with the xazer, aiming to wrestle it free from her hands, or at least keep it out of the fight. It was probably the only weapon here that could hope to do anything to any of the traitors besides Laj, so getting his hands on it seemed like a good idea.

Edit: For clarification

Minor victory number three: Grenades did not explode and kill his team.

This made the Kohanian smile, an expression that would be made all the more large when Captain Bell would answer his question. She was interested then...this was good.

The Kohanian slowly set his variable weapon on the floor, pushing it forward with the toes of his left foot until it was just poking out the side of the closing door. Then with a little thrust, Deacon slid it out towards the center of the space, far out of his own reach. Next came the katana he wore on his back, it soon joined the variable weapon.

"Why don't we make a little wager? I will bet my own life, without struggle or conflict, that I can beat you in hand to hand combat. No guns, no armor. Just hand to hand combat with a single melee weapon. I will not use my sword, but will use my bone knife from my home planet. What do you say? Would you be willing to wager unconditional surrender if I win? You and your Uniques go back to the bay, get on your ship, and leave the station if I win. If you win, we stop this charade and accept that the better team won and take whatever consequences come from that?"

Keziah didn't oblige Tweak, but only because she hadn't heard clearly what the 'Spacer had said. Her mind wavered as she saw Tweak shed her armor and disappear at the same time. It didn't make sense, but then again, so little about the Freespacer had ever since they first got on the station.

The gunfire made her reactions twitch to life, and she spun on the spot, sending a vicious, and potentially deadly, uppercut into the gut and ribs of the nearest Unique. The strike would take her to half-standing as she pushed her synthmuscles to their maximums.