RP: NSV Furi'ken [NSV-Furi'ken] Prologue - Into Darkness We Go!

Cargo bay

Barbanov had big eyes by default, the large golden orbs were a trait carried down by his father's side of the family but even still they widened in horror as the grenades began tumbling down the tank's armoured exterior. "Non-lethal 'nades!" the Healer called out as he dropped his sword with a clang, he could just find something else if he managed to get out of this situation - there were bodies everywhere that didn't need their weapons anyway...

Seven seconds - a lot could happen in seven seconds, right?

The fox boy began scrambling around to retrieve a grenade in each paw - smoke inhalation was not a pleasant thing at the best of times and they certainly didn't need it indoors, he only had two hands though so gave one blue grenade a firm kick towards where the tank must've entered to make it bugger off.

He had to hurry though, so Barbanov rolled to the front of the tank with one of the grenades in each hand - trying to cram the other blue one into the tank's main barrel before he did the same with the green one. The Healer sprung off of the tank in a rather heroic manner that was somewhat unfitting when you looked at his usually quiet and kind manner, soot and blood smearing across the ground as he began scrambling into cover with hands clamped down over his ears again - waiting for that pop...

Cargo Bay

Olffa wasted no time in simply watching Barbanov do this, now outright questioning if her translation of his job role 'medic' had been somehow badly misunderstood... The lean fox guy was fearless to a point that scared the heck out of the native hunter, and she reflexively darted back over the side of the tank, slapping Micalio urgently on the shoulder and informing her to run for her life. Those bombs could go off any second, and the short orange-haired thing wanted nothing to do with it.

"RUN, SLEEPY! COMM OHN!" A fast, mumbling speech pattern, hearing still not quite there yet. There was also some kind of highly distracting, somehow familiar, electronic buzzing noise repeating in her ear-beads that the fox didn't quite have the time to recollect. "These guys arh oughta tha minds!"

There was nothing for it now. Back behind the crates. Something in the back of her head wanted to make a quip about the guy being not a doctor but a cook, but their eyes, hands and feet were too busy trying to make sure their engineer friend got out safe too.

Buzzing, Buzzing. Getting lower pitched now... Hearing just about fading back into normality, giving the tone a dawning familiarity...

It was... Their communicator!?... Somebody had been calling them the entire time!

"Control!? Control, is that you?! This is C'Baruce Klo'den, Furi'Ken security!" Olffa made a point of straightening out her voice in order to come across clearly, rolling her vowels far too hard in a defective imitation of the city-folks northern tongue. It was probably a matter of pride, regardless of the fireballs, explosions, clomping boots and general chaos the receiver was doubtlessly also picking up. "Control, please respond!"

They assumed it was the command crew from earlier finally calling them back, but at this point, who really knew. Coiling up behind these boxes and hoping for a little luck was basically the last option the green soldier had.

Stairwell

With careful, measured steps, Ay'indri peered downward once more. Too high to jump down let alone offer a surefire way of blowing a tank up with a case full of somewhat explosively sensitive to hard impacts plastic explosives. When finally the comm established a link. . .the panicked words piped through with possibly one of the worst (Top 5 at least) imitation of the clearly superior accents of the northern cities assaulted her ears.

Her tail twitched reflexively as the small Or'ion Agent backed toward the more solid ground close to the stairwell. Her voice like a whip crack as she spoke, "Calm down!" huffed and continued. "This isn't control. This is F'Bantau Phra'athit, Bridge Crewman on the Furi'ken." Ay'indri looked to the Sere'ta'kon and back to the blown out bar. "We're on encrypted short-range wireless."

Clearly doubting if the communicator's range was far enough, and strong enough to reach beyond the immediate confines. "You and your comrades seem to be alive and well considering the situation. Bring me up to speed on what happened." she requested while crossing the threshold and back onto the stairwell. With a button press, the phone switched to speaker mode to allow Chi'ka and the others to listen in as well.

Cargo Bay

Micalio had been about to try clambering up the tank herself to help out when Barbanov had called out to her, with her tail fluffing up along with her ears the engineer let out a cry. "What did you call me?!" That wasn't something you could just drop in the middle of a battle! Surely just read hair would have done... But before the daur could protest about his lack of professionalism she felt the rapid shoving of Olffa's hands as she tried to push or pull or, something.

Micalio opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, unable to hear the security officer through her rapid shouts when she noticed the objects tumbling down the tank and her eyes became as wide as saucers. "You don't have to tell me twice!" She yelled back turning to leap towards her shorter orange friend, hoping that idiot of a healer was ok so she could slap him later.

Retrieving her own buzzing communicator Micalio made an executive decision to explain the recent events, glancing at the frenzied orange creature beside her. "This is C'baruce, Micalio here ma'am. We were actually trying to contact command right before this whole thing went up in flames, the ship has been boarded by a terrorist tank which we're working to violently decommission, some of the others on board are either injured or dead but we are scattered down here with no command structure. As of right now the tank seems to be stopped but there is an unknown number of occupants who won't surrender."

Cargo Bay

A few seconds ticked by, five... four... three... two... one... there was a loud 'pop', as all three grenade went off. The one near where the tank had come through, an opening roughly a few feet tall and several feet wide, detonated and released a thick layer of grey smoke. The other two grenades, which were stuck inside of the barrel, gave off a slightly more muted 'pop' as green goo briefly poured out of the end of the barrel, then solidified; no smoke came out though. Instead, thick smoke began to bellow from the sides of the tank, small openings in its armor caused either by the age of the tank, bad maintenance, or perhaps from the explosion's caused by the earlier grenades - whichever was the case, it had the effect of causing the three people in the tank to start clamoring to get *out*.

The hatch suddenly flew open, and a Laibe scrambled out of it, falling off the side of the tank and landing with a 'thud' on their back.

Stairwell

Her lips were pursed together to the point of almost having no color. The cargo bay had clearly been a battlefield. The three down below seemingly trying to work out how to cripple the tank. One of her ears twitched at the mentions of its crew being resistant to exiting the roving Crynatorium box of destruction. Ay'indri walked to the rails of the stairwell and peered down. There was a chance that further down they'd find an exit; possibly even one without deranged Laibe terrorists hell-bent on the destruction of the Kingdom as she knew it.

There was also a chance of running into these aforementioned terrorists further down their one way express trip to possible safety.

"If those in the tank decide to come out, detain them as you're able." someone had to pay for the deaths of the innocent. And whoever decided it had been brilliant to steal a tank and deploy it here would work perfectly for that particular purpose. After they had been properly questioned of course. If there was time for that.

"I should be able to reach your position in short order provided no more hostiles are in the area. If those in the tank have not exited by the time I get down there. I will destroy them, and the tank they are in. Make sure they know this." it probably wouldn't help. And if it didn't, Ay'indri would live up to that vow.

Cargo Bay

"Y-Yes Maam!" Olffa responded immediately back down the line, attention visibly split between talking, and watching the three half-incapacitated Laibe roll out of the tank's smouldering hull. A concerned look was then shot at Micalio, but arresting people was indeed the shorter foxes' actual job. "D-Detaining them as ordered!"

Another pounce and they were back on all fours, bouncing towards the least wounded of the three aggressors like a young kit through long grass... Except it wasn't grass, it was broken floor panels and orange-hot bits of tank.

"Stay down, you bad fellas!" The rotund thing hooted and bared their fangs, climbing onto the back of the stumbling, but still comparatively huge and imposing, enemy. It was more than a little weird to look at Olffa snap handcuffs onto a larger and more bestial version of themselves, like a children's cartoon mascot taking out the much more scary and musclebound real deal. If the enemy foxes were more awake, they probably would have taken it as an insult. "Told you ta' stay down and we won't have any more problems, yah? Don't make me hit you!"

Dragged the first one by the collar over to the crates where the red-headed engineer still was, and then started on the second largest offender. Didn't have any more handcuffs, so this one got zip-ties.

"F'Bantau Phra'athit, can I formally request some backup?" There was that bad accent again, though now strained by the fact of dragging a much heavier body around. "The tankers are flat out and secure, but if the enemy comes back now... The area is still not secure!"

Best not to say any more out loud. Didn't want the captives getting ideas.

Stairwell

Backup should have been forthcoming by now. At least in an ideal situation. This, however, was not. Holding the communicator up between those that had come along she let it be decided by them. She, however, had already committed herself to this task. An extra pair of hands made a marvelous difference in tight situations.

"Standby." was her succinct response with a quick muting of the built-in mic for privacy.

"I've already committed myself to this, ma'am." looking to Chi'ka, the lexicon, and the would-be fighter jockey in turn. "No one else need go if they do not desire to do so."

Cargo Bay

A small sigh of relief was followed by a smile across his boyish-features, the voices sounded friendly enough and he should probably go help the oran-

"Gaah!" Barbanov yelped out in pain, falling back down on his rump with a small thud after he tried getting up - the healer's face was now wincing in the aftermath of pain as those orange eyes dragged themselves down to the suspected injury.

Oh dear, that didn't look nice... epinephrine was one hell of a super power, it made him not realise all that slippery scrambling around earlier had earned him a shrapnel wound to the calf - a jagged piece of metal stuck out the side of his left leg. The fox-boy could see the irony in the only healer being the only one with any decent wounds, but it only spurred on his need to resolve that issue.

Barbanov began raising himself up, putting as much weight on his right leg as he could before he began hopping over to where he last remembered his sword was - sure enough the military-issued blade rested on the smouldering tank, the blade glowed an intense red from the accumulated heat.

That'd do the trick...

His grimey, armour-plated back pressed against a less-smouldering part of the tank, a gloved hand gripped onto the sword to drag it off with a solid thunk as it hit the ground - the other hand began snaking down to give the jagged metal edge a small prod, causing a small measure of dark blood to ooze out the sides of his compromised armour with a stifled grunt of pain.

It'd hurt, oh shit it would hurt a lot but things were always better out than in...

Barbanov readied himself, using a small pair of scissors to cut away the armour before laying out a section of gauze with an adhesive border next to a bottle of antiseptic he had fished out of the medical kit on his belt. It... wasn't a pretty sight but Barbanov kept trying to work through his own pain, eventually pulling the bloodied shrapnel out but blood began to flow freely - the healer bit down into his lip and gripped the hot sword, pressing it's glowing blade to his leg as the smell of burning hair and sizzling fox mixed with the stench of death that already loomed over the cargo bay.

Five seconds later the sword was tossed aside, heavy breathing filtering through gritted teeth as he applied the stinging antiseptic and then the gauze over the seared and mostly stabilised wound as Barbanov's vitals began to even out slowly - he sat there, scrounging through that medical kit for some kind of pain relief as the Laibes were dragged about.

For a healer, the boy sure did inflict a lot of pain.

Stairwell

Chi'ka blinked for a moment, standing up straighter and folding her arms over her chest. "We are all in the same position, besides," she turned her head to the side when a noise caused her eyes to perk - at that moment an enemy soldier rounded the corner, her pistol was already leveled in that direction and she pulled the trigger - a shot right between the eyes and the enemy was down. "You'll find that I'm not the kind of ship-mistress that likes to stay behind and not get her hands dirty," a smirk now appeared on her face, she checked her weapon right quick and then looked at the Lexicon. "Hold the back for us," she tossed him some grenades.

"Lead the way," she said to Ay'indri.

Cargo Bay

The bay fell silent, at least in terms of weapons fire; there was the occasional, muted rumblings of something going on on the surface. The plexiglass facade that kept the water away from the insides flexed a bit with each rumblings, but stayed in place and didn't crack, although it had pockmarks on it from the battle and would have to be replaced later on.

In the distance, voices could be heard coming from the hole that the tank had come out of, and it would sound like there were a lot of them coming...

Stairwell

The display of murder against another of their foes hadn't fazed her. But it was what her commanding officer said that got her going again. Activating the built-in mic again, Ay'indri soon replied to the two foxes.

"Reinforcements are inbound. Stay alive." flicking the device closed, she pulled her weapon free again. There was a moment's hesitation while looking down at the case of explosives. While they may have come in handy, they could still be set off from say, a laser burst or a gob of plasma hurtling at it with a high probability of exploding.

She left it behind. Taking the lead, the Agent began to descend the stairs at an even pace, stopping periodically to look over its edge and to check doors and corners, pistol and knife in hand once more.

Cargo Bay

Micalio watched with what was almost pride as her smaller friend got to work tying up and detaining the crew of the now wrecked tank, while she barely knew the girl there was something about the smaller, almost backwater Daur that caused the engineer to think of her as more of a child than she should, and she couldn't help but admire how she handled herself. Snapping out of it she shook her head, she shouldn't be comparing her comrades to children even if they were getting all flustered like one. Curse this weakness to adorable things!

The red haired Daur noticed Barbanov with his injury and moved over to see if she could be of assistance to the healer. "Hey there, you need any help with that?" She asked, stuttering slightly as the memory of how he had called out to her pushed to the front of her mind, never having put much thought into that sort of thing it was still throwing her off that this stranger had called her cute out of nowhere.

Cargo Bay

Barbanov found something to help with the pain without making him too much of a liability, swallowing two small pills with a look of disgust on his face as he took them dry - at this point he was sure anybody who did it like this without flinching was some kind of masochist. The healer finished re-attaching the medical kit to his belt as that red he had called cute earlier sidled up to him, a very faint pinkness gracing his cheeks at what he had called her in the heat of the moment - she was pretty cute though now that he had a moment to appreciate that truth.

"Micalio, I think you said earlier? I appreciate the offer but I'm okay," Barbanov said, ears flattening down against his head with a wince of pain as he began moving into a standing position with the heated sword in hand. "rather I'll be okay, I'm Barbanov... and I just hope all that noise outside means we are winning whatever is going on," he continued, trying to sound confident with an optimistic smile before he limped over to behind some cover.

"We should be a bit cautious though, don't you think?"

The first thing Shu'teggere Aiu'tarou noticed was the taste of blood in her mouth and the smell of smoke in the air. She slowly opened her eyes, her right eye immediately stinging. She propped herself up and wiped what appeared to be blood from her eye. It took her a moment to realize it might not have even been hers. Bodies lay all around her, her heart skipping a beat and time slowing down. She gazed at the scene, hopelessly staring while the scent of blood assaulted her nose.

Once she realized one of them could still be alive, she quickly snapped out of it and checked vitals of everyone she could. All zero. She noted one fewer body than expected; the body of another medic wasn't here. Maybe he survived as well?

Aiu looked around the boxes and debris and saw 3 shipmates with 3 prisoners secured. One of the shipmates looked injured, so she quickly ran over.

"Hey, it's the other healer!" she exclaimed as she got close. From the looks of it, he was already bandaged. He must have been able enough to patch himself, or someone else was good at wrapping bandages. Noting no other serious injuries, Aiu looked over to the rest of the group and bowed slightly. She smiled brightly, relieved to find friends alive and well. She had a bit of blood in her light cream fur, but it didn't appear to be hers. Her left ear pointed upwards at attention, but the right one drooped and didn't move with the other.

"C'Baruce Shu'teggere Aiu'tarou reporting in. I was with the other medic gentleman here before that explosion knocked me out. Sorry for being late! Is anyone in need of medical attention?"

Cargo Bay

After Olffa had finished dragging the captives back behind the crates that formed their makeshift defensive line, they kind of just stood watching Barbanov and Micalio talk. It looked like they were waiting to catch their breath before saying something themselves; Yet a new face appeared on the scene before that could happen, either.

"Another Healer? And a C'Baruce?" Olffa's green eyes looked the tiny blonde woman up and down, before deciding that they were definitely not the back-up that had just contacted them on the radio. It wasn't that they couldn't appreciate a petite new lady in their mist, but things were looking bad. She didn't want to see them turn up just to get killed. "Look... We need to get back into cover... Scrounge up any weapons that you can... By the sounds of it, this is going to get worse before it gets better."

A needle pistol was pulled from their belt, orange paws placing it into Aiu'Tarou's hands unceremoniously. A nod and a sniff of their nose later, and the security fox moved rapidly back to the boxes, looking over the grizzly scene that had become of the rest of the security support.

Somehow, she managed to find a working energy bow, shielded from the worst of the blast by a man's torso.

Never liked them. The design demanded that you held them too far back, yet the person didn't actually draw a physical string. It made her years worth of actual bow training automatically tell her arms to hold it wrong.

Lowered her goggles, and plugged the weird technical mash-up in anyways. Remembered how to load it fine, at least.

Just had to hold the enemy off for a little bit. Just an hour or two. Just had to be right annoying and slippery.

Maybe that would be enough to keep this untempered little group alive.

Maybe.

Stairwell

Ay'indri had taken point as their small group began to descend the stairwell. At least it was all downhill. She stopped at each landing to check the hallways for possible hostiles. As they approached the bottom, a large silhouette cast its shadow on the landing. The distinctive form of a Laibe rushed out, weapon in hand. The pint-sized Agent had ducked as the sword whistled through the air catching nothing but emptiness.

Knife in hand, Ay'indri stabbed it into the knee of her opponent. The sickening sound of bone, flesh, and ligaments was parted before the honed edge of the blade. The Laibe roared in pain suddenly as he'd brought the sword up ready to strike again before dropping down to the concrete landing. The weapon he'd intended to butcher her with clanged as it hit the durable concrete.

"You bitch!" he screeched, weapon discarded and their attention on the injury. Before the wounded enemy could say or do anything more, her pistol fired twice, the distinctive cracking retort ending with him now also alternating between holding his abdomen and the other injury. Not even bothering to finish the job, Ay'indri moved on, ushering her comrades forward.

Under normal circumstances, a shot to the gut would be a long, suffering wound would've caused him to bleed out quickly had an artery been hit. This, however, hadn't knicked, nor severed an artery. He'd bleed slow, but with the potent toxin, she'd coated the needles with would cause him to die within minutes. Just enough for them to think about their life choices.

The red emergency lighting caused her to squint just a little. The deep growl of defiance from the Laibe made her look back. There was no feeling there. He was traitor and deserved a slow, agonizing death. He would receive it in some small part. He was living on borrowed time.

Continuing down the staircase and on to another landing. This kept on for what seemed forever. She'd occasionally stop to check doors and corners, yet no other hostiles made themselves known thankfully. Not until the agent reached another landing and heavy metal door. Looking back to the small group behind her, Ay'indri opened it. . . and was pleasantly surprised to see she had judged correctly. They were at the hangar level. The purgatory of stairdom be damned.

Cargo Bay/Hanger

Chi'ka was pleasantly surprised, yet grateful at the same time, for the doors to reveal no other threats. Walking up behind Ay'indri, she glanced into the large bay and saw the carnage that had unfolded while they were heading there. "See if any of the combatants are still alive, interrogate them, and use any means you deem necessary to obtain information," she said to the agent. Under normal circumstances, they'd take their enemy prisoner and that'd be it, but this was a military installation that was supposed to be heavily guarded and somehow they got in and that didn't stick to well with Chi'ka, it made her feel that someone was either very incompetent, or helping them on the inside.

"Status report!" she shouted, as a squad of soldiers ran down the ramp of the Furi'ken and began to set up barricades between the ship and the hole in the wall.

"I- but-" Aiu'tarou didn't get any chance to say anything as a needle pistol was pushed into her hands by a soldier before she disappeared.

"I'm a healer..." she said quietly to herself, looking back down at the gun and at the breached entrance and back to the gun again. She learned how to operate a gun during basic, sure, but she wasn't about to shoot AT anyone. Her dulled sense of touch didn't play well with triggers either. She'd have to pull the trigger hard a few times to learn where the gun activated and memorize her finger position. I'll just provide cover fire... With a nervous looking glance around her surroundings, she found a box to crouch behind and looked towards the hole.

Just then, the other doors opened and friendlies poured in.

"thankyouthankyouthankyou" she muttered to herself, lowering her weapon. She slowly stood up and looked at the soldiers coming down before the "Status report!" shout startled her and snapped her into a stick-straight back salute. Even her good ear was as tall as possible.

"Ma'am, I was unconscious until about a minute ago so I have nothing to report!"

Cargo Bay

Barbanov let out a small "Oh?" as he saw another medical fox claw their way out of the same pile of corpses he had earlier, he felt a pang of guilt for not taking the time to check over every single person in the pile of twisted limbs and maybe he could have saved some of them...

The shaggy mop of golden-brown hair atop his head jostled around slightly as he shook his head, most likely case was that they were all dead and dying with the two medics being the only exception - there wouldn't have been much he could do besides try to make their last moments comfortable anyway, maybe he could have helped end their suffering...

No, he was still a healer regardless of the pile of torn up corpses his earlier actions had caused - of course he had to save lives but never would he accept friendly losses as a trade for a few prisoners, the young Daur just thanked his lucky stars he was legally still part of the base's personnel and that his papers to get assigned to a ship were still being processed.

Otherwise he'd be in some serious shit.

Barbanov was about to introduce himself to the healer with a limp ear when people started rushing in, he readied his blade to strike out but was hit by a wave of relief as he saw that they were friendlies and not more op-for.

"C'baruce Barbanov Depolanskaya reporting in," He began with a salute, trying to take some of the weight off of his injured leg as barbanov stood up straight and gave his best salute.

"A few bumps and scrapes but everyone standing is okay, the security force took heavy casualties and I too woke up from a pile of bodies not too long ago, Ma'am!" he looked like he had been through hell and back in that small time - blood, soot and other grot caked the healer's uniform and face but he tried his best to push through the thoughts of loss and pain to do his job.

Cargo Bay

Micalio nodded to the healer as he declined her invitation for help, he looked collected enough to be making informed decisions so she wouldn't bother pressing him any further. She had been about to agree with his caution statement however it was that moment when the fresh wave of friendlies arrived. "C'Baruce Di'Aldio, myself and..." Micalio looked over at Olffa, realising in the commotion she'd either failed to ask or had forgotten the other fox's rank and family name. "Olffa, here. Were on a routine patrol when the ship was attacked, several armed hostiles as well as that tank breached the cargo bay and took out a good portion of the security personnel."

She wondered if now was a good time to mention the comms issues the pair had run into right before it kicked off, it could be important after all. "Also, right before the attack started we couldn't raise the bridge, or anyone else actually, they may have interfered with the communications in the area or just on the ship."