RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 8] Dawning Concerns

"Contact!" roared Stromm as his foot stomped down heavily enough to shake the floor around him so he could brace himself. The giant of a man raised both of his bolteresque Fatboy's and opened up a spray of laser fire on the assailing beast.

Dyna dropped back on the catwalks, keeping herself out of the way of Stromm's fire, and opened up with her SEP, adding to the hail of blaster fire coming at the creature which had just burst from the vents- it had done exactly what she had hoped it would.

******

The first wave of ships quickly reached the drifting ship, and a number of the tiny tugs clamped onto its surface and gently brought the craft to a halt in space. A couple of shuttles were dispatched, which had specialized scanning equipment on them- they found no signs of mishhu, just two dead bodies, one almost dead, and traces of a strange substance they didn't normally see.

back at Dawn Station, another call was brought in- the ship would be sent to the hangar, which would then be quarantined until they could figure out what was in it. a flurry of activity began as longshoreman, dockmasters, and and deckboys began hurrying to cordon off a section of the hangar.

The Tugs began gently pulling the powerless vessel toward the station, as it had been deemed safe enough to do that, and would be much easier to get medical attention to the last remaining person in the ship that way.

The information in the ledgers gave Enzo the bright idea that there may be stealable items on the testing range. If he could only have located where it was...

He checked his weapons and pocketed the freshly pilfered goodies before proceeding back into the corridor. Conveniently enough, when he had only traveled a few yards, he came across a sign which ever so plainly stated that the testing range was ahead. A fluorescent light flickered cheerily above the door at the end of the hall. As Enzo grew closer to it, an even more cheerful smile began to flicker into view on his face. His left eye twitched and his mouth moistened at the very thought of procurable and tasty unreleased hardware from the defunct factory.

He hurriedly kicked open the door and raised his Peashooter, letting it go into the room in front of him.

Zeta moved into the offices and carefuly walked through room full of cubicles. There were lot of bodies. Yes just bodies, all were dead. Zeta sighed and looked for any bastard to shoot. Naoko finished her grooming and cought up to her. Zeta gladly let her go first. Zeta's large plasma rifle wasn't exactly best for this place. Smaller guns are always better inside. Unless you fighting very very tough black gooey things that wants to eat you face. Then big plasma gun is handy.

Zeta nad Naoko proceeded to rec room. It looked like Origin people fought back. Barricade was torn down, but two blac stains made Zeta smile. Then that girl poked her head out of the table, her energy pistol ready and asked about other survivors. Then some awful scream could be heard. Zeta quickly turned looking around aiming her rifle to anything. This defintely didn't sound like one of the small ones. Could it be Malice? Zeta hoped to meet Malice and gift her with face-full of plasma.

"Cover us," said Zeta to Naoko. With nothing in sight Zeta moved behind table. Ignroing Naoko's heartless comments Zeta squated near the girl. "Don't be afraid, you are safer now. We won't leave you. Now could you gather some courage and tell me if you know what made that scream?" Zeta asked.

Panther waited for the team to leave well away from sight before coming out of the shadows. After some thought he decided to take a look above to see if there were any more creatures up there, or if by some reason he can find the source of where they come from.

The Kohanian then searched out for a proper place to climb, ignoring signs that indicate "stairs" and instead finding a ladder probably used by maintenance crews. Panther quickly climbed up and hunched down low after taking one look at the vents but decided against being a rodent and took a more challenging path by crossing the catwalk. Keeping his eyes and ears forward, he carefully moved while wondering if maybe he should invest in some sort of speaking device that would allow him to talk to his comrades far away.

As quickly as they could, the tugs brought the disabled ship into the hangars, warnings blaring as people were told to remain in their ships till it could be certain to be safe outside.

The Damaged Courier was somewhat gently brought to rest on the floor of the cavernous hangar, but other ships could not see it, as it was sectioned off. Everything inside, however, was suddenly caught in the thrall of artificial gravity, and pulled back down to the ground, though the station AI was smart enough to do so gently, as to avoid harming those inside.

Quickly, several teams were sent to get in, one trying to break into the cargo bay, another landing on the roof of the ship and getting to the much more obliging airlock on the top of the ship. They dropped in, and very soon, a medical team found the bodies- one luckily still alive.

Quickly, he was put on a stretcher and people began treating him. He was given a large dose of Niskord, along with a few other drugs, and his wounds were being swiftly treated. in all the rush, however, someone forgot to give him any medicine to keep him unconscious, and the pain of the work would probably wake him up at any moment, even if it was heavily dulled by painkillers.

Daxle felt surreal as he opened his eyes. he couldn't feel himself, yet he was aware of himself. He could see other people around him, people wearing uniforms, people yelling at him and at each other. One of the people around him looked at him, gave an expression of shock, and started yelling at the person next to her.

~Did I do something?~ he thought to himself, but he dismissed the idea, since he was clearly not being yelled at. Not that he could hear anything; he simply seemed to be aware at the moment, peaceful.
A feeling that quickly went away when his brain caught up to reality.

The first wave of a throbbing pain hit him and caught him unawares, stealing his breath and holding it in his chest. He shot up, into a sitting position and was quickly brought back down by a couple of the uniformed people.

He hurt so much, but found himself unable to express it, possibly from shock or disbelief, he was in too much pain to guess or care.

"I... I'm not sure what it is," The Origin employee told Zeta as she poked her head up from cover and looked about herself in disbelief, "It sounded angry." The sound itself came from the Testing Range.
She stood up and looked about herself, taking particular note of Naoko's small stature.

"Aren't you a little young to be in a place like this?" She made the mistake of considering that Naoko was a child, "What do they put you pure-blooded Yamataians through? Jeeze, they're bad."

-

Meanwhile, over at OriSec's end of things, Stromm's readiness proved to be an asset as his Fatboy blasts hit true, as did Dyna's bullfight tactics, leading the Anger to fall through the catwalk.

All that happened to Dyna was a brief splatter of black liquid from directly above as the creatures internal systems and organs (which were yet to be identified) were fried by the energy beyond recognition, into the same odd black paste.

-

Panther could see all of this going on, and watched as Smith and his team made their way towards the entrance of the testing range without entering it, and preparing for whatever was in there.

A sharp explosion could be heard from the testing range, courtesy of Enzo. The dust cleared after a few seconds, and he had and the others a clear view of what was going on, while the others inside were only to guess.

He saw a humanoid figure that was twelve feet tall, made entirely out of the same black goo that the Angers were, but it looked more solid, more cohesive and strong. It had two very large, pupil-less eyes and a wide, animal grin with more teeth then you could count.

Enzo noticed a large indent in this thing, presumably where the bullet went, and it was healing very quickly. He also noticed that in its claws were two halves of a man who'd bought the farm, and it was looking forward to the next batch of fresh meat.

As it approached Enzo with an unnatural speed, another explosion could heard from further back in the weapons testing range. This was punctuated by an explosion that sounded much closer. This was immediately punctuated by the sounds of someone landing, and two spent cartridges hitting the floor with a clatter.

"IT'S SHOWTIME!!" He roared as the sound of a revolver could be heard cocking. At this point, a clear outline of him couldn't be seen thanks to the mess he'd made.

Vitriol then paused, mid step/slither, and made an about face towards whatever had dropped in the room.

MOMENTS EARLIER, ABOVE...
After some time travelling, Aerin's lime green hovercar could be seen floating at least thirty feet above the factory, whoever was driving it didn't look like Aerin at all. He'd put the car in neutral and left it hovering there.

"Hrm," He said as he peered over and scratched his head, noticing the normal ways in had been closed, and coming in through the front door was no way to be stylish, in his mind.

That's when he heard Vitriol's screech, and he knew what he was up against immediately. This bought a sour smile to his face as he needed a way to get in there quickly.
He looked at his HHG by his side, which was currently not loaded with anything, he drew it, flicked the cylinder open and reached down into his boot, procuring something that'd evaded OriSec's notice back at the checkpoints.

A pair of Red Hybrid cartridges for the HHG, the perfect way to make an entrance. He snapped them in, pulled the hammer back with a grin and aimed somewhere at the roof of the Facility. He fired two shots at the same location.

As the explosions rung, he vaulted out of the floating hovercar whilst flicking the cylinder open to eject the used cartridges and replace them with a moon clip of White bullets as he fell down and controlled the fall with that small degree of gravity control every Yamataian had.

No mean feat of concentration and level headedness in such hectic circumstances could've been attempted by someone who believed in stifling concepts such as self preservation and common sense.

Panther could see this man falling through both ceilings, that of the factory and that of the testing range that'd been erected inside, and he could've sworn that he got a brief glance of a familiar shape.
The others could also see this and saw the explosions, including OriSec. Dyna in particular noticed that he was in the middle of a mundane activity as he fell.

He landed with heavy thump, absorbing all the shock and ignoring it with the adrenaline that'd been acquired with the fall. He then snapped the cylinder shut and clicked the hammer back.

"IT'S SHOWTIME!!"

Vitriol recognised this voice, and his simple train of thought consisted of this: Bad man. Defeated me. Hate man. Kill bad man. It ignored Enzo in a heartbeat and turned around towards the new quarry, who emerged from the dust cloud with a HHG raised. It turned out to be Luca.

"Y'miss me old buddy?" He asked nobody in particular as he fired at Vitriol. The empowered shots were either harmlessly absorbed and spat out, or the bullets ricocheted off of it.
It snarled in response to the quip with a scowl. It got close to him and attempted to circle him and charge. Luca rolled to the side and watched Vitriol rush past him and through the wall into the Rec Room.

"So, uh, Enzo," Luca asked as he reloaded his pistol with haste, "Anything interesting to report?"

-

Back at the Rec Room more clunking and smashing could be heard from the testing range, this was punctuated by Vitriol smashing through the wall, leaving a large, Vitriol shaped hole in the wall. It looked very angry upon noticing that there was more to deal with.

The Origin employee was very prompt at proverbially crapping her pants, running like hell and leaving Naoko and Zeta to guess what that was. It looked tougher than the regular Anger and it certainly looked meaner.

It swung a large fist/claw towards Zeta, who was closest. The sheer impact of the hit was likely to take her off her feet and throw her against a wall if it connected.

Showtime! though Zeta for herself as new adversary appeared. Time to test this new suit of her. With an assualt pack she should be able to boos away. But interface was little different fron Nepleslian suit programmed into her mind. Here goes nothing, second lighting though came through her mind as she boosted to the side. Not quickly enoug, for beast claws scratches her shoulder plate a little but fast enough to not be sent flying.

Stopping her boost in time was completely different. All she managed to do was slowing down before rammingthe wall shoulder first. Luckily she slowed enough to net get hurt or damage the armour. She scraped some coulor of it though. "To hell with you you bugger!" she shouted then as she turned and shot another heavy shot at the goo-warrior in front of her.

Instead of replying to Luca directly Enzo spat out his cigarette and pointed off to one side, towards Vitriol and the massive hole in the wall. While the massive beast was swatting at the other crewmembers, Enzo took the opportunity to load a fresh clip in his Peashooter and light a new cigarette. With the cigarette tucked tightly in his mouth, Enzo drew his revolver alongside the Peashooter and dashed off to join the fray.

His running start brought him through the hole and into the rec room quick, where he threw his feet out and slid along the ground, cutting between Vitriol and Zeta. As he slid, the greasy vagabond turned his weapons and unloaded them entirely into Vitriol's black goopy exterior.

With his acrobatics expended for the moment, Enzo made for the nearest cover to reload his Peashooter and switch the revolver out for his SEP.

Automatically, the small NH flexed her legs, going airborn and backpedaling onto a desk - then the thin and unstable edge of a folded tennis table that had somehow survived the chaos and destruction brought about by the Angers and the fight for the Recreational room. Naoko didn't strafe left or right; she crouched atop the table in full view, the SmAR in her left hand raised like the lance of a soul-reaping Valkyrie, the broad-bladed axe drooped lackidasially in her right. In part, she was certainly daring it to keep on coming - comfortable in her own abilities, she was ignoring convention for a little while. Maybe she was still riding the high from the Hemosynth. However, there was another advantage to this position tactically; in her current position, right in front of the beast, there was nobody in her crossfire and nothing to stop the rain of fire.

Her position secure, toes curled around the upright table edges, Naoko leveled the SmAR at full arm's length, took a nanosecond's aim, and opened fire on full auto, the bead centered on the creature's upper torso, neck, and head.

Seiren had all the best weapons the station had to offer, for the moment: A brand spanking new Impulse and a Fatboy with all the bells and whistles. And yet, he did not shoot a single time during all the conflict. Every time, it seemed like everybody else had the situation under control. And these blob things, what WERE they? Tagging along with Enzo's part of the group, he observed two things. One: Blobs+ballistic ammunition of any sort=nothing. Two: Blobs plus plasma charged ammunition=fried blob. It seemed that, as long as the ammunition was any sort of plain ballistic shots, the blobs could simply just absorb or reflect it. Reasonable enough Seiren would think as Vitrol left by punching through a wall.

"Ballistics won't work on this. Stick to plasma." He informed the others, readying his fatboy. The inventor then ran to the hole and used it for cover, then began unloading as much ammo as he could give into the creature.

Dyna quickly wiped the splattered Anger off of her face, and stood back up, drifting down to the ground near Stromm before talking into the Comm, ordering the OriSec team to sweep the facility for more of the creatures, before turning to Stromm. "Shall we go after that huge thing?" she asked, pointing towards the huge black thing as it smashe through a wall.

******

Quickly, the Origin people went about trying to stabilze Daxle- the yelling nurse ordering someone to bring a stretcher with straps so they could secure him, to keep him from moving and possibly hurting himself. "Sir, you have to remain still!" She urged him, gently starting to cut off clothes around his more injured parts, so that a team of surgeons whom were arriving could tend to his wounds properly. A White BigCat hovercar bearing a red cross and appearing to have been modified with a large number of sirens as well as a different rear door appeared, it was obviously an ambulance, getting ready to take the man to an Emergency room if need be. Several others arrived, and the bodies of the deceased crew were quietly hurried in to them, to be identified at the morgue.

Daxle could hear at this point, and certainly tried to remain still. He was shaking very badly, however, but he did seem to feel a bit calmer.
"Horrible creature" he managed to say to the nurse. His thoughts and his words didn't seem to be on the same page, resulting in a barely coherent sentence.
"Highly resilient...dark, black...acidic...strong...cohesive somehow...morphologic...but! It's weakness! Incredibly conductive...oooo and I lost my medical bag" was all he said as he groaned and tried vainly to sit up

((Joint Post between me and Frost))

"Please sir, stay down, you might open your wounds!" One of the doctors advised as he calmly and softly pushed Daxle back down on the stretcher.

He was loaded into the BigCat vehicle, and the doctors nearby tried to make some sense of his story.
"Sounds delirious," One of them commented offhandedly.
"Combat trauma. Didn't get any signs of drugs in his system," The other responded with a shrug, taking a glance at the vital sign monitors.

"Either way," The first one said as he jumped in and closed the doors behind him, "We can't verify his story."

Daxle couldn't really see much as it was incredibly difficult to stay focused on one thing for any length of time. It was sort of like drunkeness, just that the pain was happening now instead of later, and all over rather than just his head.

The doctor who was watching over him as the BigCat made its journey leaned over and asked, "Can you tell us where you've come from?"

Daxle swung his head over to the direction the Doctor's voice came from. To him, all the lights and fixtures and people all blurred together in a wave of colour.
"I'm a human...alive?...or dead..." He seemed to stop for a long period, like he was thinking, then suddenly started again:

"The ship...it burned holes in the ship, like acid, or made from it...I was on the ship...it was black...liquid, yet solid...highly Conductive."

The doctor's eyebrows had a visible quirk looking and Daxle as he looked over to his colleague, "Are you sure there isn't anything that could mess with his perception of reality in his system?" Other than what the doctors had pumped into him.

"Positive." The cohort replied.
"No mescaline?" The main doctor questioned.
"Nope."
The main doctor folded his arms, "Dopamine?"
"Not a drop."

"Nicotine?"
"Not at the moment."
"Adrenaline?"
"Bugger off, I get the idea," The secondary doctor was getting visibly annoyed by this, "Bottom line is, we'll have to take this as-is."

"Give OriSec a ring," The main doctor suggested, being surprisingly helpful, "See if they've got anything to verify this guy's story."
"On it."

"Thought it was a dead man! I tried to find his cause of death," he shook his head at the ceiling "But he melted... he melted!" He shook in his restraints. He seemed half mad, half sobbing, like someone who couldn't cope with a failure.

"He just melted into that black...thing! And it killed everyone... Geharus...Hector...Morphologic, acidic, yet highly conductive..." He continued to ramble in that half mad, half sobbing tone.

The cohort doctor was getting many replies from OriSec, "What? ... bullshit. Visual please... what the..."
The head doctor looked confused.
"This guy isn't lying. Take a look at this. It's happening right now at Factory A12."
The head doctor leaned over and took a look at the footage. As the carnage ensued, a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face.

"Get a team to inspect The Plow in finer detail, immediately," The head doctor made an all points bulletin, "We're dealing with an alien hazard that could threaten to destroy the station. As far as we know, there is no infection apparent, but take every necessary precaution."

Daxle overheard the cohort talking, and he got very afraid. He looked wildly about, panic stricken.
"Doc, doc...Highly Conductive..." he swallowed, very apparently frustrated that he couldn't seem to control his faculties long enough to speak straight-forwardly.
"Highly...Conductive! Fucker took my bag...Highly Conductive" he kept repeating, with an increasing hint of urgency behind every repetition.

"And someone get the Shock and Awe team to deal with this," The doctor urged over radio, "No, that's not a polite request. If you want your face torn off," He was making a slight exaggeration to get the point across, "Bring anyone else armed with anything else. Salvage team, make note to find a medical bag."

-

Arin could see The Plow about a hundred metres away from her with nothing else notable to stop her getting to it, and it was just brimming with goodies for her to take a look at and analyse. She wanted to know what tore the ship to pieces.

Unfortunately, Origin salvagers were already in there, and an overwhelming urge to push one aside was rising as time went on, and her itch to know just what, and why was gnawing on her conscience.

Noise. Noise. Noise. Smith had went off towards the rec room on his own initiative, regardless if he was wandering off alone or not. He stopped outside the Rec room, hearing voices. The Phoenix crewperson, Zeta. And the Neko. But one more....ah! At least she made it out alive. The Origin representative stood outside and listened in; he didn't want to be in the same room as the damned killing machine. Who would? Eventually though, he heard what had to be an impressive entry not too far over. And then that thing barreled into the Rec room. Smith casually greeted the Origin Employee as she ran by, panicked. "Hello Miss Dillard, good too see you are well considering the circumstances."

The slightly off Origin Representative considered shooting, but shrugged. Seventeen millimeters of armor piercing high explosive could wait for a bit, considering they both seemed quite occupied with one another. It was rude to interrupt. Smith merely walked in as they fought, and pulled a bag of popcorn from a smashed open drawer before placing it in a miraculously still functioning microwave.

The popcorn started popping.

"Yes, quite, Mr..." Ms. Dillard looked down at Smith's nametag, "Smith," She couldn't peel her eyes away from the commotion caused by the Phoenix Crew and Vitriol, "Who are these people?" She asked as she took a step towards the action.

Vitriol, meanwhile, was under a shower of combined fire from the Phoenix crew, including stabbing, cutting, ballistics, energy and sheer chutzpah.
"HEY VITS!" Luca taunted to the carnage embodied out over the commotion, "TACTICS WAS NEVER YOUR STRONG SUIT!!"

Vits was still keeping it together in spite of what was hitting him. It made three quick and deadly claw swipes. One towards the little running cat with the axe, another towards that person in the armour who wouldn't die, and the final one towards what it hated most.

Luca was quick to roll to one side again, barely clearing the distance and ending up with the back of his jacket torn, with some minor wounds. He was not impressed at Vitriol's predictable tactics and keeping a smile on in spite of the wounds he'd gotten. However, he'd failed to realise that his back to one Ms. Dillard.

"I think I should..." Ms. Dillard didn't seem shaken by the action any more, "Help them," Her voice sounded less flustered as she stepped out of the safety of the office, and her voice took on a quiet, malicious tone, "Maybe, a cure for what ails Mr. Pavone..."

Smith was the only one able to notice that Ms. Dillard's hand appeared to be melting, and coalescing into the shape of a long, pointed pick and hook as she quietly strode towards Luca, who was oblivious to her presence. Everyone else was too busy paying attention

Smith had a moment to react to what was unfolding in front of him. There was also the matter of watching an Anger creep in through the vent, and another one creeping up through a hole in the floor, on the crews flanks. It all appeared to be up to him.

Zeta didn't manage to dodfe another of Vitriols attacka. She was hit by large claws and flew off hitting another wall. Luckily armour shrugged it all off. Although barely. Whil Vitriol was under fire she stood up looking at the dent in the wall she left.

Zeta was now angry. More like furious. Her plasma rifle was on the ground somewhere but that didn't matter, it needed to recharge anyway. She took table she flew over before and threw it off her way.

She then started shouting. "HEY UGLY YOU CHOOSE BAD BODYGUARD TO ANGER YOU SILLY BUGGER!" She then rerouted all power from her shield to her booster and jumped against Vitriol. Chargion her knuckles she boosted against Vitriol in the highest speed, armour with assualt pack was able to move. "FUCK YOU!" She shouted as she has hit him with right hook empowered by her momentum, PA strength, her cyber arm, anger and knuckles.

Funny. Smith knew, as it allowed him to do his job better, most of the employees in this sector, and it wasn't in Miss Dillon's personality to stick around when things got messy. It was half on his mind to put a hand on her shoulder and calmly inform the employee that they had come for her and anyone else, but fine. It was part of the job to make sure she and others came back in one piece, but if it was her decision to make it harder than it should have been, the Origin Representative wasn't going to always go out of his way to help. As the bag popped away with the theater snacks, Smith opened up a bottle of water and sipped while watching the scene play out. So far, they were going to be fine. They were all going to be just -

Smith gave an ugly frown, an expression that belied the absolute fury that he felt as his mind saw the hand shift and change; one thing that hadn't changed about him over the years, was how quickly he tended to think. With a smooth quiet, Johnathan Smith opened the microwave and put the open bottle of water in with the nearly finished popcorn before closing it and pressing the continue button, setting it to maximum.

She never saw the microwave coming.

Smith hefted the microwave overhead, pinky fingers extended, and lunged with the radiation spewing, water soaked, short circuiting, spark throwing, cancer causing contraption. It smashed over her head, viewing window first.

"Fry Bitch."

Stromm stared plainly at the massive opponent as it tore through Origin Industries property. His jaw hung slightly as he took in the appearance of it, before snapping his chomper shut with a harsh clank. He gestured his Chubby forth to signal his much shorter by much superior officer to lead the way.

"Do you think we will require heavier ordinance? Or has the infamous Dyna Shevi decided that this will be a challenge rather than a mission." mused Stromm, following after the minute leader.