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RP: Cirrus Station [Episode 8] That Sinking Feeling

"Well, that strategy worked." Noboru said to no-one in particular, holstering his gun. He noted the amount of ammnition in his loaded magazine had dropped quite a bit from its original status, and decided not to discharge it unless absolutely necessary. But, Noboru being himself after all, the Yamataian acknowledged that the gun would be empty in about five minutes.

The Yamataian expatriate watched Kokuten unleash his Fist o' Fury on one of the twins, whom was being attacked by Stovaa and Method as well, and decided that those three had the situation well in hand. His next decision was to go after the one Deacon and Method were facing off with, so Noboru made his way across the factory floor and drew his pistol, holding it at a ready position while waiting for an opening in the fracas.
 
The twin dealing with Deacon and Tweak was caught off guard as the Neko dismantled his weapon while it was still in his hand. With this momentary distraction, there was an opening for Deacon to take. Luckily, for the Kohanian, both Tweak and Deacon double-teamed their attack harmoniously so that the Kohanian's wild punch could land square on the cyborg's temple. Disoriented, he was unable to stop Deacon's follow-up attack, in which the Hyena's blade sunk deep into the twin's chest above the clavicle. In retaliation, the Twin, visibly weakened by the strike, grabbed Deacons blade-arm and began to slowly push it out the sharp weapon while bringing his own blade back for a downward strike.

On the other end, the one-eyed Twin growled as his arm started to crunch under Method's claw. He began to reach for the Freespacer to get her off until an expertly thrown crate struck the twin in the front, almost hitting Kokuten as it flew. The container practically bounced off when it cracked into the twin. Disoriented, he stopped compensating for Method's weight and was pulled downward towards the floor. Kokuten, to the Twin, almost appeared from below the falling projectile as the Doctor evaded it's rebound, and, with the one-eyed cyborg brought down lower than he originally calculated, sunk his 1000 lb. punch deep into the assailant's face with a sickening crunch.

With that, the formally one-eyed twin sunk to floor, battered, crushed, and maimed.
 
The still-active twin seemed to forget, as he wound his arm back for the heavy-handed stabbing strike, that Tweak was still behind him.

The neko took full advantage of the mistake. She didn't have the leverage to pull him over her back in a flip (though she sorely wished she could do so), and doing that would endanger Deacon somehow as he was still holding onto the sword that was lodged in the twin's chest. So instead, Tweak spun around so her front was facing the twin's back, hopped up just enough to grab his wrist with both hands, then placed both her feet on the small of his back and wrenched back on his arm as hard as she could.

Best case scenario: She would tear his arm out at the shoulder socket after pulling it ninety-degrees straight back in a direction it was never meant to twist. Once the arm was 'freed' from his body, Tweak would probably tumble off the conveyor as her legs propelled her away from the twin, but at that point the fight would be pretty much over anyhow and she could easily recover from the fall.

Intended scenario: The arm would remain attached, but it would be pulled out of socket or otherwise taken temporarily out of commission, giving Deacon precious seconds to dodge, parry, or get out of the way.

Worst-case scenario: She could lose her footing and he could pull her over while stabbing at Deacon. Likely she would cause him to miss his aim, but he might still hit her teammate and it wasn't what she was going for.
 
As the man she had been riding had his face caved in by a giant fist, Method flipped off his shoulders and narrowly avoided landing in a heap of Freespacer on the floor. Once she had gotten her feet, she simply sort of stood and watched Tweak and Deacon fight the other man - mostly Tweak. Her eyes followed the other 'spacer curiously as she battled.
 
"Maker-"

Noboru stopped moving immediately. Deacon had managed to get the twin to hold still, and the Juggernaught of a pirate now stood in a grapple with the huge Kohanian. The expatriate saw his chance, and raised his pistol to shoulder level. His mind shut out all of the outside influences that could distract him (or as many as possible, anyways) as he levelled his eye on the sights. The tiny gun pointed directly at the twin's center mass, swaying minutely every time the twin shifted. The expatriate squeezed one eye shut.

"Easy... Squeeze the trigger..." Noboru suddenly jolted as the Twin's spare arm was yanked back by Tweak, causing him to shift. Noboru swore an oath under his breath and realigned his aim. Tweak was moving him around now, the shot was a bit more difficult. Noboru couldn't wait - he raised the gun again, aligned, and fired the last three shots in his magazine at the guy.
 
"Argh..." Kokuten grunted, as the one-eyed twin hung on to his fist with his face. The Captain tried to pull his hand out, but for some reason, it had lodged deep into the eco-terrorist's skull, almost two-inches past wrist deep. After a few pulls, the Doctor fond himself incredibly stuck, even when he tried to shake the cyborg off of his hand.

"Ah... help? I seem to be stuck..." radioed Kokuten as he tried to pull himself free.
 
Noboru's shots, although somewhat risky on his target, had a much wider margin of success with Tweak pulling back the cyborg's arm. His bullets collided with the sides of the Nepleslian's face, jerking its head to the side with each impact. The cyborg sandwiched between Tweak and Deacon seized up suddenly, the tension it previously had in its struggle replaced with a solid, motionless lock-up of limbs.

With an incapacitated cyborg stuck on his hand, Kokuten found himself in an odd predicament as a familiar figure trotted over and glanced at him from a few feet away. Nell, having watched the fierce but short conflict, had remained with the small group of hapless bystanders for its duration. Now that it seemed to be relatively over, Nell approached Kokuten cautiously with her eyes glued to the eco-terrorist, weapon raised.

"... you guys okay?"
 
"Ah... Argh..." Kokuten grunted, still trying to pull his fist out of the cyborgs face. He tried flexing his fingers, but that only lodged him deeper in somehow, rooting himself in. He could have just done an explosive flex of the fingers with about the same amount of force he had in the punch. However, that would either just punch some holes in the terrorist's head, or cause the cyborg's head to explode, sending bony shrapnel everywhere. As Nell approached, she received a helpless blue glare from the lights behind his visor.

"Ah, yes, we are quite fine!" said the Captain as he shook his stuck arm in frustration. "I... I just..." He growled further as he continued to try and remove the twin's skull, "I just need a little assistance..."
 
Tweak's eyes widened as Noboru's shots landed. One tore a hole in her suit as it passed on its way to the twin's cybernetic skull. The twin's limbs locked up soon after, though, so the neko let go and dropped to the ground after making sure the adversary wasn't faking something. She turned to Noboru, who was still aiming his weapon at the cyborg. All she saw was that it was in her general direction. The reflective one-way nature of the CSS helmet's visor hid her glare.

She lifted her arm and examined the suit breach. The bullet had barely missed an armor plate and went straight through, and missing her arm altogether. It probably wouldn't have hit her or the suit if she had been wearing a properly-fitting CSS uniform. Tweak glanced around, but decided that repairing it wouldn't be a good move for the moment. Too many observers. For now, hope they didn't come across any atmospheric hazards.

Turning to Deacon, Tweak looked over the Kohanian briefly while her frown faded. He seemed relatively undamaged...the twin's grip on his arm may have done something, but it didn't seem like it. The hyena man seemed very durable, as his appearance suggested. Going into melee range against someone with a gun was incredibly risky, though, but she decided Deacon had handled this particular situation well enough.

The neko mentally nodded to herself, then reopened her channel to Kokuten after watching the team leader deal with the skull clamped to his fist. "Should we continue, sir?" she asked, sounding a little eager to get moving again.
 
Nell, after another short moment of making sure the Nepleslia Eco-terrorist wasn't going to spring to life again, lumbered up to Kokuten and yanked at his arm, propping up and pushing her leg against the stiff cyborg body as a means of leverage. "Urgh... 'preciate tha help an' all," Nell spoke in a hurried fashion, signifying that she still realized the situation they were in, "but what're youse guys doin' here?"

---

"I assume you all are done?" Kess' voice asked earnestly through the communication channel. Tweak herself would suddenly, through a more mechanical impulse, get the sensation that Kess actually didn't know what was going on; the Savtech unit Tweak held was intended to be connected into a system that provided visual information. Tweak would feel slightly uncomfortable for a short moment, for some unknown reason.

"We need to keep moving, but I'm not sure how to deal with that Nell Unique," Kess spoke urgently through each of Squad 35's headsets, her tone clearly noting how unsure she was of the exact method. "Just keep in mind that I can't hold these systems off forever."

Now that the immediate danger seemed over, things in the center of the room had calmed down. The Vinross Yu-Cranker employees were mostly standing now, a couple of them were kneeling next to the only one of them who was not on his feet. There appeared to be a wound on his abdomen, blood staining his white and yellow uniform as he pressed both of his hands onto his abdomen.
 
Blake made his way to the wounded hostage and knelt down next to him. He ran his gloved hands down the man's shirt and tore it open with a firm grasp. He remained silent as he examined the wound closely, his training doing it's job for once. He holstered his pistol and tore a strand from the man's shirt and began cleaning the wound.

"Captain," he called to Kokuten, "This one's wounded. I've got some medical training, but this one's more up your alley, if I may say so."
 
"You... are very welcome." Kokuten grunted, his fist giving way out of the terrorist's face with Nell's help. With that, his bloodied and skull-fragment covered hand was revealed as grisly a sight as it could be. The Captain stopped to stare at his hand for a long a moment, before shaking it up and down, flinging bits and pieces of bone and blood off of himself. He looked over Nell, finally able to giver her an answer.

"We are securing safe passage for Head Administrator Cassefin Montreal." said the Captain in a straightforward and professional manner. He seemed to act as if he hadn't just had his hand wrist deep in a person's face. Though, he really didn't have time to think about that, nor did he have time explain why they had firearms. Besides, unlike his younger brother, he was not an adept liar.

"Should we continue, sir?" [Tweak] asked, sounding a little eager to get moving again.
Click to expand...

Kokuten turned his head for a moment, appearing to be distracted by something.

"Yes, take Claire and Deacon, and scout on ahead. We will catch up as soon as we clear up this situation." radioed the Captain to Tweak, he seemed a little quick to respond, but that was because he was dealing with more than he was used to. In fact, Kokuten wasn't too sure if sending the three of them alone and on their own was the best idea, but at the moment, it seemed to be.

"Captain," [Blake] called to Kokuten, "This one's wounded. I've got some medical training, but this one's more up your alley, if I may say so."
Click to expand...

"I would not mind field surgery if I had the proper tools, and were properly sanitized, but I do not." Kokuten frowned behind his visor as he reached for his hypolathe and loaded a capsule of painkillers. He seemed to inspect it for a moment, before tossing his trusted possession at Morris. "Here, use that to soothe the pain and get him ready for a medevac, it's all we can do for him right now... Now..."

"Let's see... let's see..." Kokuten hummed aloud, turning away from Nell for a moment, to pull off his helmet and scratch at an itch furiously before putting the headgear back on. He was doing his best to think anything he was missing at that very moment, but couldn't think of anything as he rested his gaze on the eco-activists they had just killed. "Ah!" he said aloud with clarity before activating his helmet's radio. "Stovaa, Noboru, Method. Gather up all the weapons you can from their corpses." Kokuten pointed the dead, but rather weapon-enriched bodies.
 
Blake lowered the Hypolathe to the wounded man and depressed the trigger. He watched the relief cross over his patient's eyes as the painkillers took effect almost immediately.

"This tool is quite efficient, " he told Kokuten, handing the device back, handle-upwards.

When he was satisfied with the former hostages condition, he moved towards Stovaa and Method, holding the submachinegun he had picked up earlier in the fight with the twins out to them.

"Here," he said, "The magazine's empty, but there might be some ammo for it just lieing around."
 
The neko nodded to Kokuten, then turned to Deacon (who was still on the conveyor with her) and radioed both him and Claire. "Group at the exit," she said, indicating the doorway opposite the one they had entered by. Then she frowned. Something was 'off' about her suit. As if the suit, for a moment, wasn't as baggy as it used to be, in fact becoming quite snug. Not tight, but certainly not as loose as it had been. But then it was back to normal. "I'll meet you there after I check something." Then, switching channels, she responded to Kess.

"We're moving now. All threats in the room are disabled," Tweak said, meanwhile twisting around and looking at her suit, trying to find a gauge or something. Maybe the pressurization was going haywire? "Um...are you able to see? Are there any sensors for you to use?" she asked, frowning again to herself as the search turned up nothing usable. The only interesting thing was that the inner armorsuit's nano-repair system had kicked in and filled the breach left by the bullet passing through with hardened gel.

Maybe the sealing of the breach had caused a pressure difference? The suit was fitting normally now, so Tweak set the oddity aside and turned and ran along the conveyor until it reached the back wall, then hopped off it onto a set of stacked containers and dropped down to the floor from there, waiting for Deacon and Claire to report ready before moving on.
 
Noboru had lowered his pistol to his side, and was standing where he had shot the twin from. His mind was still catching up with what had just happened, slowly realizing that the Cirrus Station Bullshit Card had been played just before they had gone into the little scuffle. Now that they had fought those cybernetically enhanced twins, the Laws of the Universe had slowly begun to twist and curl themselves in such a pattern that made the lives of the members of Squad 35 into a tactical nightmare.

"Sigh," Noboru said to the closed space inside his helmet. Eventually he broke away from his stance and went to inspect the corpses, as per his Sergeant's orders. As he inspected the armaments and the corpses, he took note of their loadouts. The corpses all seemed to be lightly armored, if sporting any armor at all, and wearing improvised combat webbing to carry their sparse equipment. The heaviest armor appeared to be an old, damaged ballistics mesh vest. Most of the group was sporting 10mm submachine pistols, which didn't pack as much raw power as the .45s the squad was armed with, but had better suppression and more plentiful ammunition. Noboru looted one of these pistols, checked the magazine in the gun, and then took three more 10mm magazines from various corpses around the room, being sure to check that they were fully loaded.

Once that was complete, Noboru moved over to stand at his Sergeant's side, cradling his new gun. "Sir," the expatriate said in a low voice, "if this group is anything to judge the rest of their forces by, the terrorists are lightly armed and armored. If we strike quick and hard whenever we see a group, we should be alright."
 
Method snapped out of her daze with a small sound, looking around the wreckage of the room. Her brain barely registered the gory sight of Kokuten's fist as he gave her her orders - unfortunately, by the time she had actually registered them, the other two had seemingly already completed the work.

"Aye-aye, sir," she said, awkwardly.
 
The eco-terrorists were as Noboru had found them; most of their armor was improvised, at best, with nothing really usable or even on par with the lackluster CSS suit. The weapons they were carrying were mostly 10 millimeter submachine pistols similar to the ones the twin cyborgs were using. Near the corner of the room, however, amongst the crates, the single Unique corpse the group had caught sight of earlier was still remaining motionless, half concealed behind a crate. It was uncertain or not if anything else of value was there.

The small group of Vinross Yu-Cranker employees made room for Kokuten and Blake to work. The man for, fortunately, better off than it first appeared; the blood staining the area around the trauma was minimal, as was the wound itself, despite the fact that the bullet wounds were indeed made by the weapons of the eco-terrorists. The penetrations missed vital organs, and the man's own application of pressure saved him from most of the blood loss that would've been associated with such a wound. The man instantly succumbed to his tired state as he was injected with the drugs.

---

"No, I cannot see anything," Kess replied back to Tweak in a rather annoyed tone. "This savtech unit does not have a visual component; I'm being fed information from the HUDs of the squad, but they also have no camera feeds or functionality aside from remote monitoring of vitals. I'll have no functionality until I'm in the computer mainframe... which we should be getting close to." The Savtech said nothing more after that.

---

Nell seemed grateful for their help, for certain, but appeared to not be entirely sure about Kokuten's answer. "Whaddya mean, secure passage? Elevator went down bud; youse guys should be headin' up if yer lookin' for a way out... where is the loud redhead, anyway?" the Unique said as she watched Blake and Kokuten apply some quick medical attention to the wounded employee. Her calm and slightly confused demeanor changed, however, as Nell caught sight of Tweak and the others Kokuten had commanded to scout ahead start nearing the opposing doorway. "Whoa, hey!" Nell called out in surprised as she stumbled her way (nearly tripping in the sharp stiletto heeled uniform footwear) towards Tweak. The silver-haired Unique, looking a little exasperated and even more confused, stopped and casually held her weapon in her hands in front of her.

"That's the wrong way, yannow?"
 

"Well, we need to do our best to avoid conflict, but if we find ourselves in an unavoidable situation, we will make use of your tactics." The Captain nodded to Noboru as he communicated by radio. "If we can get past Nell without her suspicions, we'll be fine for the most part, I believe."


Kokuten cringed as Nell began to become more interrogative with the subject. He had to convince this woman that their intentions were less suspicious than they really were. Though, still, he was not the best at lying to people, especially for a Doctor that had to tell the truth to his patients all the time. Usually they were painful truths...

You have cancer, sir.

A case of Space AIDS, ma'am, were you sure your... uh... brother was checked before you two... uh...

You have an estimated three weeks to live.

It's a case of Dashimoyo's thyroiditis, an inflammatory condition of the Thyroid. In short, Goiters.

He's dead, Jim.

From painful truths, to easy lies, or were they? It was hard to tell. In Kokuten's case, he didn't have much time to reflect on a clever lie, so he had to do as all his friends could(especially Rico), lie through your teeth.

"Oh don't mind them, Ms. Nell!" Kokuten called out to the Unique, leaving the side of his patient, and holstering his Hypolathe. "They are simply scouting ahead for more troubles. You see, Head Adminstrator Montreal places... ...great trust within us as her private security unit, and as such..."

He paused, looking away, as if distracted again, but in truth, he was desperately trying to think of an alternative truth to hand to the Unique.

"...we feel the need to properly secure this level for her own safety. Yes, and since the elevator is out, we cannot advance any higher, and as such, Administrator Montreal is safest within the elevator until we are sure we can retrieve her."

That was decent enough, right? The Doctor thought to himself, unsure how effective his lying was.
 
Claire sighed a little in frustration. She was not some insane acrobat like Tweak or ridiculously strong like Deacon. Shooting into the melee would just as likely hit her squadmates as her enemies...

And then it was over. It had all happened quickly and while she had gotten her initial burst off, she found that she couldn't get a clear shot afterwords. She slowly moved towards where they were supposed to go as the fight finished, not making a run or anything as she knew better than to leave without her squad. When Kokuten ordered them to break off, she frowned a little, but made no objection. She liked the idea of the smaller group being able to move more freely, but that left the question of the larger one... But that was out of her hands now.

As she moved towards Tweak, letting her take point, she paused. That unique apparently had a problem with them leaving, mostly because Kokuten couldn't lie his way out of a cardboard box. (In her mind.) She turned around with a glare. Without even looking to see what the rest of the squad thought about it, she took a couple steps towards her and grabbed the plated collar of her suit, where the helmet would normally attach. With a tug, she pulled the Unique forward so that the two women would be face to face. "Did you not see the entire fight? There's undoubtedly more of those... androids running around. And chances are they outnumber you greatly. WE are going to stop them and I am -not- going to let you get in our way. Either help or shut up. Got it?" She shoved Nell away unceremoniously, her burst pistol still in her other hand. To anyone that had been there for their first encounter might understand Claire's hostility, but to everyone else she undoubtedly seemed to be unnecessarily mean.
 
Nell, surprised and slightly shocked at being manhandled by Claire, stumbled backwards a few steps after being shoved away. As she regained her balance, the silver-haired Unique's surprise turned to embarrassed anger as she glared back at Claire's expressionless faceplate. "I'm tellin' ya, yer goin' tha wrong way!" Nell repeated in a harsher tone, her previous confusion still audibly present in her voice.

Nell glanced back for a moment at the handful of Vinross Yu-Cranker employees watching them from afar before turning back to Claire. The Unique stood straight up and gave the woman a smug smirk. "'sides, I'm a Unique. Uniques can handle anythin'," Nell said proudly. "Long as I got mah squad, we can mop up these lowlifes in a snap." A quick look around the area, however, revealed that this squad of hers was nowhere to be found. Nell herself seemed to realize this fact shortly after finishing her sentence, taking a moment to glance nervously down the hallway behind Claire and Tweak.

"... as soon as we regroup, I guess," Nell mumbled under her breath, not prepared to so readily admit her current predicament.
 
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