RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 3] - The Wrong side of the Deathbed

Jim wooshed away from the crowd of raiders, clutching his left arm. He was hit. Blood ran down it and onto the handlebars of the airbike, which now whined with a different note which signified a couple more holes in it. He looked back to see how much damage was caused my his run on them... rounded a small hummock... and nearly smashed headlong into a truck meandering its way towards the village. In his attempt to avoid a collision, Jim flew off the bike and into the sand. Turning himself over in the sand, but in too much pain from the gunshot wound and the fall to get up, Jim yelled at the driver, or rather no one in particular, as he knew full well that it wasn't their fault, "The hell! Aaaugh! F***!!" A few more explatives eminated from Jim's mouth before he paused, then asked, "A little help please?"

"Whazzat?" One of the raiders asked another as he saw Laliel's truck zip into the no-horse town.
"Dunno - Let's shoot 'im!" Replied the other as he cocked his Zen-Arms SMG and began firing at the town wildly with who was left, screaming at the top of their longs.

Luca did notice a car pulling into town, but he had slightly bigger problems to worry about at this stage, like 10mm bullets zipping past and putting small holes in the buildings. He was wondering why Mitch or Crane didn't seem to follow orders, but shrugged it off.
Mel had a few bullets go through her tower, but none hit her, one managed to hit the toolbox that she had put down beside her.
"They'll pay for that!" She growled as she furiously cocked the rifle and fired at some poor bastard, venting his front lobe, "Bloody wankers."

"This crater will be a nice grave for these idiots..." Luca stood up and armed the M'Cel Launcher with the explosive round he was given, aiming it just where they were going to be, and pulled the trigger.
BLAAOUUM!!

The recoil from the launcher moved him back a pace or so from intense and somewhat unexpected recoil, and the shell went flying towards them. Somewhere in the crowd you could hear the sound of: "OH SHI--" before the grenade struck ground and exploded in a mushroom cloud, leaving 9 raiders to be diced, meaty confetti. The other 5 who had been lagging behind were very, very demoralised and began backing away, quickly and dropping their guns.

Michael Godfrey wasn't impressed at this and turned his attention away from Vincent and to who was left of his raiding party.
"GET BACK THERE!!" He commanded.
"No sah! - He's-a gotta bomb!" One replied while trying to hide the fact that he was pissing himself.
Michael just decided to let his chaingun loose on all of those sad sops. "Fuckin' worthless idiots." He grunted as he began marching towards the village.

Body Count/Injuries So Far said:

25 Raiders (6 to Friendly Fire)
Jim, Lower Left Arm
Mel, Tool Box

Click to expand...

Luca then looked at his smoking firearm. He had a feeling that this gun would save his skin more than a few times in the future.
"Groovy." He commented as he put it in his jacket, stood up and jumped off the roof next to the truck and tapped on the door, "Allo? You come to help us?" He asked nicely, not knowing who was inside.

Laeliel ducked down behind her steering wheel as a large, quick moving object suddenly appeared in the beams of light her vehicle projected, heading straight for her; luckily enough its pilot seemed to have enough sense to not run headlong into her, even if he didn’t have enough to have avoided the brightly-lit vehicle in the first place. Pulling herself back upright after hearing the airbike – and its pilot – impact the ground and subsequently swear like a trooper, Laeliel turned her frustrations on the downed male.

“Help?? Help yourself you fucking retarded drunken desert hick!” she let loose at Jim through her open window, not able to see that he was bleeding in the darkness. Her mouth was poised open to continue her barrage when a large explosion silhouetted the buildings in front of her; ducking down behind her wheel once again she revised her opinion of her supposed holiday down yet another notch.

Cautiously peering over the vehicle’s dashboard at the dusty air where the explosion had taken place, Laeliel kept her head low in case of any more explosive surprises and eyed the dark form of the airbike rider over the edge of the four by four’s door. Intending to give him a grilling over what the hell was happening here she was caught short by the sound of tapping on metal and a polite voice.

“Help you what? Fly around drunk on airbikes and rearrange the landscape?” Though her tone lacked the outright hostility it had contained only a few moments earlier it still had a certain sharpness to it, overall it sounded like someone very irritated trying to at least be civil. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass on that.”

I guess I can scratch "Reinforcements" off the list. Luca thought to himself as Laeliel let loose at Jim.

"Uh - Y'see -" He explained himself in an as polite manner as possible, "There were some very nasty people out to get this town. We and some friends of mine were hired to make sure they don't do that."
He moved over to Jim and checked what'd happened to him. He did notice a couple of holes in his airbike, and a hole in his left arm.
"Also - my friend got shot by one of the bastards, so he's a bit - well - disoriented. Sorry fo--"

"COME OUT HERE YOU PIPSQUEAK!!" Michael's voice roared as he began stomping towards the village with his chaingun whirring away by his side and ready to let loose, "I'LL SWALLOW Y'ALL WHOLE!!"
Luca heard this, "Excuse me one moment miss." And turned around with his arms open, "Hey you - Y'need to start feeding your brain, not your arse!"
"Ooohh - Smartarse eh?" He said as he pointed his chaingun at Luca, "Pretty dumb last words!"

In an almost instant, Luca flicked out his 10mm Pistol and emptied his magazine, hitting Michael's body a couple of times and the chaingun attachment in the main mechanisms.

Mike managed to squeeze out only a few rounds from his chaingun, one hitting Luca in the right leg, hurting him pretty badly and making him stoop a bit.
He then noticed that his Gun-arm was acting funny before he could keep going, and refused to fire anything, and was giving out sparks, "Shit." He said as he tried to wave it, hearing it rattle and clunk, eventually sputtering out of commission.

"I paid 4000 DA for that, you prick!" He yelled as he seemed to detach this faulty chaingun-arm and dropping the drum of ammo strapped to his back onto the sand.
He then managed to produce a spare arm from behind his back and attached it to where his faulty chaingun was.

"You gonna be like pancakes, kid." He threatened as he stomped towards Luca with fists raised and an insane grin on his face.
Luca didn't have a comment as he tried to get a steady stance with a rather injured leg and raise his fists, then he did: "You'll have to flatten me first."
Then, telepathically, to the unknown driver, Jim, Mitch and Hitori, he transmitted this message.
I might need some help to take down this tin can man.

No-one seemed to notice a heavily-repaired Firefly-class Troop Transport roaring across the horizon, piloted by a blond, gun-toting ID-Sol. A few hundred yards away from Michael, the main door swung open and held in position, flying on autopilot. Vincent used the momentum gained by the roaring stop to jump straight at Michael, feet-first with his huge feet.

"EAT SHIT AND DIE!" He shouted his battlecry as his massive, steel-toed, booted feet closed the distance with Michael. At the last minute, he drop-kicked Godfrey and grabbed his shoulder with a massive hand, using the other to get the larger Godfrey in an epic headlock.

Crane had been cowering pn his small hill, wanting to help out and follow orders, but afraid of his first foray. As the raiders began dying like flies, he became more confident and wished that he had helped out earlier. As Godfrey stormed into the town, he had intitially ducked behind a building, but continued watching. He began also to follow at a safe distance, ducking behind buildings in case he could still get a chance to help in some way.

Crane was surprised to see the veteran raider seemingly detach his arm and replace it, but he quickly shook it off. "Well, I guess it's now or never," he thought, as he saw Luca get hurt. Just as Vincent began descending upon Godfrey, he ran out, flamethrower ready but waiting to see what would happen with Vincent before he burned him to a crisp as well as the raider.

"I'm very sorry about nearly running you down, but the town is under attack and I was helping defend the innocent people living in fear there. I charged their group and was hit in the arm. After I crashed avoiding you, I think I landed a bit funny. Doesn't feel like anything is broken, but at the moment, I can't seem to get up. Think you could help a guy out? Look," Jim said, "I'll give you 50KS to help me and my airbike into your truck and bring me to the town."

Jim was quite desperate for assistance as he heard Luca's mental cry for help. Luca, Jim responded, Doesn't look like I will be abe to help for a bit, it seems as though I am in a predicament of my own. If I get in range, I'll see what I can do, but don't get your hopes up.

Whatever reply Laeliel would have made was lost the instant the sound of shots rang out; she quickly slapped her vehicle into reverse gear with a minimal amount of protest from the gearbox before ripping the steering wheel around and standing on the accelerator. With a stream of kicked up dust and a roar from the engine, the vehicle spun around through three quarters of a turn before Laeliel caught its momentum and jammed it into first, sliding herself behind a building from all the action before letting the vehicle come to a stop.

Her ‘flight’ reaction to gunshots had – in her mind at least – saved her life a number of times; when lead started flying around sitting around in a vehicle in the middle of it all was not somewhere Laeliel was keen on being. It had even overrode her careful consideration of the downed biker’s monetary offer for assistance, at this point in time 50KS was a fairly large sum of money as far as the female driver was concerned.

Hopefully he wouldn’t die before everyone shot themselves and each other and generally settled down… or died, whichever they could do quicker.

Laeliel irritably flicked a hand against the headlight stalk coming out of the steering column dousing the bright, attention-grabbing beams of illumination that lit up her vehicle like the bullet-magnet she wanted it not to be; for the moment she would skulk around and see what happened.

Michael hadn't expected Vincent to quite literally get the drop on him and put him in a headlock. He had some wrestling experience of his own.
"Gerroff me!" He roared as he began to break Vincent's grip slowly, and leaving his head open to an attack.

Luca, being the natural opportunist made a limp quick towards Godfrey and reeled his left fist back...
"Time to re-arrange the rubbish!"
...and swung it at him with a full pelt, accidentally putting weight on his injured right leg, making him lose some of the power in his punch and stooping forward, hitting him in the throat. This attack probably really hurt Mike's voice for a while.
He tried to make a recovery on his good leg and took another swing at him with his right fist, this time scoring a better hit to the jaw and probably knocking out a few teeth, sending some blood about and giving him a bad case of whiplash to the neck.

Mike sputtered a little, and looked extremely pissed off. "Fuckin' kids!"
He attempted to kick Luca in the groin, but he just leant out of the way, almost getting him in his bad leg.
He then tried to stamp on Vincent's toes with a very heavy metal boot. He was still leaving himself open though.

Mel turned around to see what was going on, and strapped her rifle over her shoulder as she slid down the ladder without making too much noise and stalking towards Michael and Vincent from behind. She had the butt of her rifle ready to use as a club.

"Ah, c'mon and die already!" Vincent moved the grip of his left hand up to Godfrey's face and took a handful of head, and pulled back towards his own. Hard.

Crane found himself standing in front of the two wrestling. He didn't think it prudent to unleash a stream of flame on his friends but he didn't want to risk breaking the flamethrower be smashing it on Godfrey, either, because it belonged to Luca. Just then he remembered what his occupation was. Setting down the flamethrower, he quickly reached into his specially designed pockets and withdrew three of his small knives. "Here," he said, tossing one each to Vincent and Luca and keeping one for himself.

Hitori had moved from her position and watched the battle. After the raiders had been 'taken care of', she noticed the struggle with Michael. Since there was no reason for her to stay there, she quickly made her way over to the rest of her group.

Unsheathing one of her daggers, she jumped down to a few inches from Mike's left and took a wide swing at his unprotected neck. The Geshrin made sure that she wouldn't hit Vincent or anyone else in the vicinity except for her target.

Looks like the price of Michael Godfrey had been slashed, once and for all. A small fountain of blood came from his slashed neck as he drowned in his own blood and began to go limp, collapsing on the ground in a bloody heap.

"And that ends that." Luca said as he sat down on the ground, tending to his injured leg and flicking his Communicator open to call Mr. Anonymous. His face lit up on screen instantly.
"Ah, Luca - what bothers you?" His faceless form asked politely.
"Anon - Our group has managed to stay steady against an invasion of about 25 raiders and this one big dude with a big chaingun."
"Very good." He commented with a nod, "Any injuries or casualties on your end?"
"Yeah - Two hurt limbs and a toolbox with a bullethole in it." Luca replied as he put the camera of the communicator to his leg, and over in Jim's direction.

"A shame. Oh well - you can get that fixed." His head then leant over a little and he noticed the truck, "That your truck?"
"Er - no. Just some lady. Almost got us by accident but doesn't mean harm, I think."
"Hmm..." He pondered, "Bring me to her so she can receive some benefits for intervening."
"But she didn't-"
"Now."

Luca tried to stand up, and began to limp over to her car and tapped on the glass.
"Excuse me ma'am - my employer wants to speak to you." Luca asked Laeliel politely as Anon would've.

Jim finally got some wind back into his lungs and got to his knees. Quickly, he messaged Luca, Take care of things on your end? And with that, he got to his feet shakily and used the flechette rifle as a crutch. He made his way towards the town in Laliel's wake.

When all the shouting and noise died down Laeliel allowed herself – cautiously - to relax a little; when she saw the mostly-polite male hobbling her way she decided that the outcome was probably positive, even if he was –guessing from the telepathy from before – a Yamataian. She eyed him and his communicator distrustfully, wondering why whoever his employer was wanted to talk to her; one part of her mind hoped whoever it was wasn’t part of the syndicate that ‘employed’ her, another part hoped it was so she could vent her spleen at them.

Before she could respond she spotted movement in one of her rear-view mirrors out of the corner of her eye. The biker had managed to pull his sorry form off the ground and was making progress towards their position; she was unable, and unwilling, to stop the irritated “Tch” that popped out of her mouth as her 50KS helped itself, just as she had previously suggested before money had become involved.

Turning her attention back to the communicator but making no move to take it, Laeliel prompted both Luca and his employer with a grumpy “Yes?”

Anonymous' faceless form looked at Laeliel, "Hmm. So you have somehow stumbled upon a lone Knight in the chessboard of life - correct?"
He seemed to smirk, "I am his King. For those who do assist me, or at least find me - I have rewards..." He seemed to put his head down and type away at something on his desk.

"From what you would've seen, he may not have explained to you that this is a small village. Women, Children, only a few men and less who are capable of guarding it. So - they asked me to send someone to help them with their predicament of Desert Raiders. I chose my Knight to move on their Rook and it was taken - so to say." He chuckled at his own metaphor, "For assisting him - or attempting to, at least, you have earned 3000 KS as a small memento. Spend it wisely. Now - Luca..."

He turned the communicator away from Laeliel. "Payment - The thing you seem to enjoy most for your deeds."
"Gotta keep a living somehow, right?" Luca smiled.
"Yes yes. 18,000 KS for you, 13,000 KS for your subordinates - including the girl with the GP-1 Rifle."
A thought struck Luca: "How'd you notice her?" He peeked over his shoulder and noticed her, somewhat disappointed at not getting to club Michael.
"What a dick." She sad as she gave his corpse a kick and began to rummage through his belongings and pulled out a letter and a box of of 20 10mm bullets. "Hmm... Luca - 'ave a look at this"

"One moment Mel!" Luca called to her and turned his attention back to Anonymous, "Thanks Anon - I'll keep you updated if anything happens."
"Not a problem - Fly safely - and find a way to get your friend's truck on too if you can." His face disappeared from screen with a fizzle and Luca's background displayed. He snapped shut and pocketed the Communicator.
The moon was out in full and the clouds above had cleared, illuminating everything with a faint blue-orange glow of cool and sand.

"What is it?" Luca said as he hobbled over and inspected the piece of card.
"Dunno - looks like a business letter of some sort." Mel replied as she opened it up and looked at the letterhead of 'Halogli Corporation - Pharmaceuticals from the future.' And a symbol of an inverted skull.

Halogli Corporation said:

Michael Godfrey.
Your objective is simple - wipe out the Village and remove any bystanders from the area, forcibly. Make some attempt to make it look like the fauna did it if you can.

You have a compliment of 25 of our lesser guards, dressed and armed to look like raiders. Some will have a surprise you will soon see. The village is not armed so this should be a pushover for you and the men.

- Valdul

Click to expand...

Mel and Luca were both struck by something as they read the last paragraph and dropped the letter in disbelief. They took a look at eachother, somewhat scared of the prospect of corporate destruction and reinforcements.
"This was an organised, hired hit!" The two shouted to eachother in unison.

Vincent stood up from a crouched position near Godfrey, induced from his landing. He looked over at Luca and Mel.

"What about a hired hit?" He said, checking to make sure his weapons were still in place before fluorishing Crane's knife and tossing it to him.

Jim made his way over to the group and cast a sullen look at Laliel adn said sarcastically, "Thanks a bunch, you really saved my ass back there." Softening a little, he said, "Well I suppose it couldn't be helped, you are a civilian and didn't want to get involved. But it looks like you are now in any case. Perhaps looking back, you could have made another 50 by helping someone in need."

He turned to Luca, "So whats the news?"

"I've got some good and bad news." Luca seemed a bit worried, but had a feeling that this could get interesting, "Good news is we've gotten paid. And the lass over in the truck has gotten some compensation for coming in on us. Bad news is that letter..." He passed the offending article to Jim, "Show whoever you can."
Mel "Mel is go check out the other raiders, see if they got anything else on them..."
She put her rifle over her shoulder and rushed out into the battlefield...

Luca slumped against the wall and reloaded his 10mm pistol, and got his spent magazine and reloaded the spent magazine with Hollow-Point Bullets.
"Let's rest here for a while. See if the villagers can get us some-"

"HEY LUCA!!" Mel yelled out from the battlefield. The lack of corpses lying on the ground disturbed her, but the weapons they had were intact and lying in the sand and she took 3 Zen Arms 10mm SMG's. She put them in her bag and armed herself with one then turned back to Luca, "THEY'RE GONE!!"
"WHAT??" Luca replied, "WAS MY BOMB THAT POWERFUL??"
"NO - THEY'RE ALL GONE!!"
Luca had a very bad feeling about this and began looking around, "HOW MANY VIDEO GAMES HAVE YOU BEEN PLAYING!?"
"NONE - Y' BLOODY WANKER - THERE'S NOBODY HERE!!" She began heading back to the village.

Behind Mitch, he could hear something groaning and moving towards him at a shuffling pace.
He immediately turned around and saw someone who was in the fray. He appeared to be missing an arm and most of his face seemed to be missing. His eyes were glazed over white.
"The-?" reflexively pulled his machete out from behind his pants, took a step back and slashed the zombie's head off. Its body fell to the ground and its head rolled like a bowling ball, "WE GOT MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIES!!" He yelled as he jumped off the roof and his eyes darted around.

Luca lifted himself from his sitting position and looked around. The village was indeed surrounded by the living, groaning dead of the raiders who they just polished off like flies.
"Oh - shit..."

One was heading towards Crane with his arms and teeth bearing. One was creeping up on Hitori with a groan.

"SHIT!" Vincent moved quickly. Crane and Hitori were both in his line of sight, and his mind calculated the time of arrival to be just a second short of the time it would take for Vincent to draw his hand cannons and loose a single, powerful bullet towards each of his targets.

So he did just that. In a blur of motion, Vincent's hands flew to his back, drew out both of the Hand Cannons tied down there, came up to shoulder height and waited for Vincent's command. He sighted in on both targets and fired a shot. Both shots would sear almost directly into his team-mates' heads, missing by not more than a millimeter.