RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 1] - Feel the Pain

MEANWHILE, BACK AT SARGASSO...

She sat there and sipped her drink as she looked down at a communicator some one left at her table with a note. The note simply read:

"That Party you were looking for."

She looked the communicator over, nothing unusual about it, it only had one contact. -Party Line-. It was almost creepy, but she shrugged and hit the contact,

Bronzi had hopped out of the truck and was on Makari's six. As Makari began shooting into the back of the crowed of...what ever the hell they were, Bronzi's left hand fumbled around in one of his hip satchels. Soon he held a simple metallic cylinder in his hands with a circular pin dangling from the top limply. He then yanked a pin out and did and under handed through sending the device into the midst of the raging maniacs.

The canister landed, bouncing off of the unfortunate people and detonated with a loud forceful "BOOM!" The results would be almost immediate. It was a Gartagen Flashbang. When Applied to Gartagens it would stun them with the force of the detonation, and disorient their sense using the large could of smoke. To the human progeny species it had a much more visible effect. The foul smelling smoke caused sever itching, immediate nausea and defecation.

Bronzi smirked and began lighting a cigar. Provided the grenade had calmed down the creatures Bronzi would call out. "Anybody alive in there?!"

MEANWHILE, BACK AT SARGASSO...

A pair of sultry lips pursed with curiosity at the new comer in the bar. Peach tree had under gone an aesthetic change since she was last seen making her home in Bronzi's flat a bit more bearable. It was not the penthouse she dreamed of, but at least Sargasso was safe.

Peach tree had a girlish beauty about her, but the destruction of her long flowing blonde hair and the subsequent replacement of a short, brunette hair cut gave her an almost boyish appeal.

She sat at Lina's bar-top carefully counting her meager tips...most of which were given to her by Bronzi and the other boys in Luca's little band. She were a pair of sandals and an orange sun dress. She locked her brown eyes onto the new girl. "You must be one of the new girls that got hired in....I think you were a little late. Luca and the boys rolled out about two hours ago."

Peachtree shifted a glance to Lina and shrugged. She felt kind of bad that the girl was left behind, so they may as well socialize with her if she was going to be frequenting this bar.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT SARGASSO...

The purple haired Neko looked up from the communicator in her hands. "What do you mean, 'hired-in'?" she looked at the young lady talking to her. The short hair seemed to look good on her. Tani had thought about cutting most of her hair down. The look on this person made her start thinking about it again.

Peachtree tilted her head at the inquiry. "Considering the way I have seen it work...most everybody associated with Mr. Luca ends up working for him in some capacity. Or are you a romantic interest?"

"Funny how everybody keeps talking about him, but I still don't know who he is." Tani looked back down at the communicator. No reply about the party yet. "Am I 'post to?"

"What the hell is in this stuff?" A voice floated in the back of Ellen's mind. Aerin's voice, but it sounded odd, floaty, almost surreal. "You ought to do something about it, I can feel you slipping away." it was odd how it sounded. Detached, observant. Something told Ellen that Aerin couldn't take over right now, something in the smoke overpowering even her Yamatain brain's connection to the body. "Get moving, before it's too late. We can fix this." Aerin spoke one last time, her voice floating off into nothingness. For once, Ellen's mind was empty of that other voice. But it was not clear, no, it was more muddled than it had been since she had awoken in a trash heap somewhere on Yamatai.

She moved, her legs sluggish, feeling as if they weren't fully attached. Her arms moved, though she really couldn't tell. Stumbling, the girl made her way over to the safety booth, and tumbled in, her hand grabbing the corner of the mask and tugging it down from its mount. Ellen fumbled with it, and then placed it on her face, and just lay there, breathing filtered air, waiting for her mind to clear up again.

"Hm. Some of them are still standing. And I have just the solution!" Seiren giggled, fishing into his pockets to retrieve a baseball-sized reddish orb. "Mark 1 Prototype! Cinna-bomb! Alien guy, Mark-ey mark, Neko girl, I'd suggest covering your mouths."

The pipsqueak inventor, leveled his body like a champion (amateur) shot-putter (tosser). Carefully, carefully. . .

He shot his arm upwards, causing the orb to sail upwards, upwards, and then descending into the middle of the crowd. No boom.

"Er. . . funny, it should have-" *FWOOMPH*

A cloud of red dust erupted, engulfing the remnants of those civilians in a slightly spicy mist.

"I meant to do that!"

Zeta watched her arm for few seconds. She thought that he arm was just sturdier and better with Allyson's upgrade. That was not the case though. If only Zeta knew how to actually use this on purpose or if Allyson just told her about vibration devide. Well it was there now, might as well use it.

Zeta threw the clotted filter aside and checked if that helped. "There was something caught in the waterfilet. Someone was deliberately poisosning whole town," She said on comms for everyone to hear.

With the last completed, the younger Smith carefully put the containers away into a single padded suitcase.

"Alright," he started, picking up the sweat cloth Luca was patting him with moments ago for himself. "We got the stuff mixed, but now what? We still need to administer this to everyone affected, and before they finally kick the bucket," Scott pointed out. "Going to be stupid hard if they're all axe crazy like the doctor I saw though - did your source say how to deliver this? Injection? Inhalation? Skin contact? If it's the last two, we can be lazy and use a crop duster or something." Eying Luca as the man searched about, he shook his head in disapproval.

"I see not everybody in the classes paid attention to keeping work and hobbies separate," the young man sighed, picking up his fedora and placing it upon his head.

"Just what are you cooking up in your head Luca?"

Makari was pulling the trigger of his HHG, but there was not a single loud bang to be heard. Instead, each bullet that flew towards the mindless people was a liquid capsule. Each glass capsule would shatter against their flesh and a tranquilliser contained inside would seep into their clothes and into their skin.

One by one, they started to drop as the tranquillisers took effect within seconds, being stronger made stuff that Makari could afford to buy as a bounty hunter who had to get his quarry alive rather than dead.

As they were falling down with wet thuds and starting to trample each other, he watched a cylinder fall into the middle of the crowd, and there was a loud bang and a bright Flash.

Try to imagine that you'd had a light shone into your eyes that was so powerful that it was able to penetrate your fibre of being and shine into your eyes through your skull and brain. Even if you were standing behind it and not looking at it it would still get to you.

The force of the concussion knocked some of the people off balance so far that they went careening off the pier and into the water. Those who remained on land were strewn and lying about the entrance in a state of semi-consciousness found themselves pelted by peppery treats.

For the best, they decided to remain lying down.

And then the doors to the warehouse slid open. Vita stood between them and pushed them open, displaying an unseen strength that might've been natural in the Pavone blood.

She then held onto her ears and thinned her lips Bronzi, furrowing her brow and snorting towards him. "A simple 'Hello' would've sufficed," she groaned. Her body was able to cope with the Gartagen flashbang better than the mindless, D-Motiva infected people, but it still hurt her ears, ringing and droning as they slowly recovered from the sheer sound and fury.

She then looked behind her at the children inside the warehouse who'd all buried their heads under their pillows and were moaning in pain ever so slightly. She looked back towards Bronzi and shot him a withering glance before turning his attention to Seiren and Makari, who were a little more trustworthy - at least dad knew Seiren beforehand. "Where's dad?"

Aoi was the first to step forward from the group, and Vita tensed when she spotted the pink Nekovalkyrja ears on her. Aoi paused and inspected Vita carefully too. The fact that all of the other children in the warehouse were disoriented by that noxious flashbang, but Vita remained stable was something a teenage girl wouldn't be capable of.

It was more than Pavone blood running through her veins, she could see the family resemblance. "I think... he's with the doctor." Aoi responded after a pause, glancing upwards as she tried to recall the last bits of radio communication that flew across the waves.

She stepped forward again to move past Vita, and as they crossed each other's glances, they seemed to pass by each other while looking in each other's eyes as they went.

I know what you are.
Let it be my secret, pinkie.
Only because you and your dad helped me. You helped us.

"Yuuka, Tanaka, Taro, Hiroyuki, Misha, Wakamoto, Chiyo, Annata, Mai!" Aoi paused for a breath as she made a head count of her friends, and slowly they rose one by one to look at her and Vita. Her face broke into a smile and she clasped her hands as her friends remembered her. "Shiko, Kikyo, Billy, Hotaru, Hanako, Reiko, Genno, Sasaki, Morimoto!"

-

"The way I see it," Luca replied to the younger of the Smith brothers as he toyed with the detonator, "We're not going to get anywhere by giving this stuff to individual people. As long as that cloud hangs above the city, they'll just get infected again as soon as-"

"~♪~ Biddlyboop biddlyboop ~♪~"

Luca stopped to look at his chest. His phone was singing that tinny rendition of the Phoenix Man! theme song. He sighed and placed the detonator down as he mumbled something about dramatic timing, and pulled out his phone. "Party...? Oh, right. Guess they're late."

He sent a short message. He sent the message without a second thought.

"Where was I? Ah, that's right. We're going to disperse the vaccine into the very thing its fighting against directly." He picked up the detonator again. "I just need a teeny-tiny dab of explosive and an air cylinder to compress all of the Vaccine into so it can fly in all directions with great prejudice after it gets 'opened'."

In so many words, he was going to drop a bomb on the cloud.

He then got the message from Zeta. "Hear that? Deliberate poisoning!" He radioed Zeta, Ellen, Panther and Enzo. "Means we've got a paper trail to follow after this. Enzo, Panther, Zeta, any of you find anything useful? How's Ellen holding up?"

-

Ellen could feel her thoughts being scattered to the wind as her vision blurred and the noxious fumes of the cloud began to overwrite and subvert her senses, slowly and steadily muddling her mind as memory by memory from both consciousnesses faded into blackness. A breath of fresh air through the choking smoke was starting to clear her mind enough for her to stand up and move around. She started taking deeper breaths as she stood back up, feeling her thoughts straighten and return.

Meanwhile, the Lorath found that being stabbed in the hand and held down by a person who smelt as bad as he looked was not an optimal situation. As he wrestled with Enzo and Panther, the Lorath interloper could be seen opening his mouth and dislodging one of his molars.

They both knew what he was going to do next unless they reached in and stopped him.

As Zeta through the busted filter aside, she watched as her elbow popped out yet again for a short measure, and slammed back in as she was about to release it. It flew further than Zeta anticipated, hitting the Emergency booth's walls and shattering into pieces.

As she was inspecting the damage, she could see Ellen stumbling inside the Emergency Booth with an oxygen mask on, breathing in and out of it heavily. Alerts and warning were lighting up on the dashboard, and Zeta could see and hear that the cover over the burning pond had stopped.

-

"1 TH1NK 4 BR33Z3 1S C0M1NG." Echelon observed over the radio waves as she tapped into planet wide meteorology reports.

"Might want to wrap this up soon!" Allison replied, hot on her robot buddy's heels. "If that cloud gets bigger..."

"Y0U'R3 G0NN4 B3 UN4BL3 T0 PL4Y NSS D34THW1SH W1TH M3!" Echelon blurted out. Her priorities were clearly skewed, but she didn't want her friend to lose her mind. Allison shot her a glance of surprise, and continued monitoring the situation.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT SARGASSO...

As Tani sat there studying the lady talking to her and wondering truly who this "Luca" person was, he communicator chimed.

"~♪~ Daloodo Daloodo ~♪~"


She looked at the reply. It was curious, "Uhh... It there a Air Raid system here in this town?, Cause I think we may need to get everyone undercover..." She showed Peachtree the message. "I take it that this might have something to so with your "Luca?""

Makari was smug with contentment as each zombie-person fell to the ground. Well, at least up until the point where the super flash-bang went off and took the glory of saving people from him. Makari grimaced and re-holtered his HHG.

Aoi was the first to step forward from the group, and Vita tensed when she spotted the pink Nekovalkyrja ears on her.

Click to expand...

As soon as Makari spotted the ears he whipped out his HHG, unloaded the liquid shells into another pocket. He quickly slipped his left hand into a hidden pocket in his coat and removed a speed loader filled with the illegal black rounds.

He kept his voice steady, but there was a distinct edge to his voice as he raised his gun towards the Neko. "Why the HELL is there a Neko here? You're his kid, Vita, what's your call? Do we trust them or do I start plugging away?" His finger hovered gingerly over the trigger. "Because I REALLY am not fan of Nekos. In fact, tell me that I'm dreaming...I just SAVED a Neko." He was fuming.

Bronzi shrugged at Vita and responded with a cheerful "Hello!" he merely stood and puffed on his Cigar having been satisfied with their little rescue of Vita and the kids. He then nudged Seiren forward and began moving to inspected the injured people.

Bronzi called out over the radio "We got Vita, found a buncha kids...were gonna head your way unless you want us to hand tight."

Bronzi looked at Makari who REALLY did not seem to like Aoi. Bronzi responded before Vita could. "You just saved a Neko. Yer gonna get paid fer it too. Now quit yer bitchin and lets get movin."


MEANWHILE BACK AT SARGASSO......

Peachtree looked at Lina, now somewhat alarmed at the question. "Uh...I don't think we do? Why? What is going on?"

Zeta tossed the nasty thing on the ground and quickly ran to the Ellen. She did not know the girl very much, but she drove to them and Luca seemed to like her. Zeta softly took the girl by her should and help her get further away from the smoke.

"Breath girl, breath!" Zeta said as they walked. "What happened inside there? Are you all right?"

MEANWHILE BACK AT SARGASSO.....

Mako watched the looks exchanged between Peachtree and Lina, she started getting concerned, "Well Ummm I just got this text form someone, saying that they are going to bomb a thundercloud, and to stay indoors if I see it," she showed Peachtree the message on the communicator, "Just seems to me that maybe we should get the word around."

Instead of sticking his hand in the Lorath's mouth, or just shooting him like originally planned-- Enzo began the dutiful diligence of pistol-whipping the shit out of the alien in the side of the face with his snub-nosed revolver.

This, he did with his hand still wishfully wrapped around the thick, meaty Handcannon he'd decided was his when he first spotted it.

Enzo behaved this way because-- by choosing to end his own life, the Lorath had revealed that there was some value to staying alive. Enzo wanted this. Enzo was greedy for the information he'd wring out during the incredibly painful interrogation/incredibly humiliating torture/attempt at trickery and bonding.

"Ah, she's not a bad neko. She's got mad haxxor skills!" Seiren cheerfully noted. His face fell when he tried to do a mental search on various things. "Uh. . . This cloud or something's interfering with my wireless. Probably the cinnamon bomb, but I can't look up evacuation slash emergency plans. Kitty-girl, you know a thing or two about the town?"

"Wait...what cloud are you talking about?" the younger Smith asked.

Walking over to the window at a fast clip, he went on, "The last I looked, it was just another clear, scorching hot day in - " Needless to say, he stopped short once when he reached it. A black, billowing cloud of smoke rose in the distance and was rapidly coming to loom over the entire town. Looking away and nodding to himself, Scott ran a hand through his neatly combed hair. "Ok. So you're trying to neutralize the junk put up into the air by what I'm guessing is a fatty algae fire. Great. Just great," he said, shaking his head and checking over the encased vials one last time.

"Yeah, that'll stop the worst of it if the stuff is ok with being aerosolized with a bomb," he admitted. "But even then, it'll only mitigate the effects on the folks at best - should be easier to administer whatever doses they need afterwards after calming down a little though."

Picking up the cases, Scott Smith was ready to go.

"Fine. I'll be outside if you need me," he managed to grate out before spinning around a storming off outside, his jacket flowing with him. Makari slammed the door and muttered curses under his breath as he reloaded his speed loaders while prodding each body to make sure they were still out cold. He preferred the unconscious semi-zombie people to the presence of a Neko. Makari knew he shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but he found it exceedingly hard to do so after his time on the Acadia.