RP: Taking It Back [Phase I] Assembling the Team

Both of the gunners had returned to their respective sides of the truck bed by the time the battle pods had emerged, Lang fired on the only one open in his field of fire. The explosion caught him completely by surprise and he began shouting into his COM for a survivor check, that is until a data stream began feeding into his cyberbrain's HUD.


Clicking his radio over to the groups 'general' frequency Lang spoke, "Everyone in the rear of the formation take cover! We have some incoming precision guided whoop ass targeted on those battle pods!". He then dropped the radio and held on once again.

Rennik heard Lang, but he still had 2 more explosive rounds left. He fired them both into the upcoming barricade, then dove down onto the bed of the truck and clung to the bottom of the seat.

[Underwater, Several Kilometers South of Funky City Municipal Dock 234-DYA77]

Old propellers began to turn slowly. A metal giant sleeping in the sand awakened. A cloud of sand and silt filled the area near the ocean floor as the artifact of the last civil war rose from the depths, pushing slowly towards the mainland.

Inside the aging warship, the whistle of ballast tanks reported to the emptiness of the corridors within. A crackling of radios and the whir of machines starting harmonized with the whistling in a cold, computerized orchestra. Clicks, beeps, LED's of assorted color lit up one-by-one on the bridge, with Lang's command floating in green text on a small screen right above the Navigation Terminal.

A soft metallic sigh emanated from the beams and struts adjusting to the sudden change in temperature. Volumetric displays lit up in the corridors and the front of the bridge. They became windows for the dust that inhabited the ship to view the outside world. The hollow submarine pushed ahead, towards the surface and towards the end of the road that the resistance members were travelling down at that very moment.

As if to signal it's approach or celebrate its awakening, three tiny silver slivers shot out from the top of the great beast, arcing away towards land.

-----

[2938th Street South, Funky City, Less than one Kilometer North of Funky City Municipal Dock 234-DYA77, Travelling at roughly 88 Kilometers per Hour.]

The caravan of resistance members was pushing forward, raging towards another roadblock. Those in back of the first truck did what they could to soften the barricades ahead, but the situation wasn't looking good for them. Several buggies remained ahead. Lucas gritted his teeth and slammed down the accelerator pedal in preparation for a major collision. He didn't even hear the low shriek slowly building above them.

Behind them, the ID-Sol gripping the side of the second truck was reeling from the force of the punch to his head, yet celebrating having successfully dodged the heavy knee. Blinking away spots, he climbed slow over the side of the truck and stood before Chrys again, still tightly gripping her wrist in one hand all the way. He snarled at her before pulling firmly on her wrist, jerking the large woman straight towards his raised palm. The doctors and engineers cowered in the bed around them.

In the third truck, the men were cheering Archie on, some even giving applause of the feat they'd just witnessed. The display had given them the guts to start attack of their own, and so pulses from Little Killers and bullets from ODMs panged uselessly off of the hull of the smoldering battle pod, which rocked unsteadliy as a result. One of the more intelligent resistance members managed to pass another round for the RPG up to Archie, patting the mustachioed hunter twice on the shoulder as he dropped it in his lap with a smile.

Nearby, Alex smirked under his scarf as he dodged machinegunfire from the battlepod he'd distracted earlier. It was playing into his hands perfectly, and he was ready to pounce. He calmy leveled his HHG with the eye of the pod and... wait a minute, what's that sound?

Alex pulled back on the bike and looked above him to catch sight of three missiles streaming towards the convoy. His eye zoomed and focused on each of the pieces of 'precision-guided whoop-ass' as they descended. By his on-the-fly calculations, one was headed right for him and his battle pod. The Nepleslian calculator looked back at the battle pod for a moment before uttering, in a perfectly calm monotone, "Fuck."

If in fact a period were to make an audible sound when spoken, it would've been at precisely this moment when the missiles drew in. And if the end of the quotations marks had its own placement in conversation, it would have been at precisely this moment that the missiles his. Alex observed this himself as a fireball of shrapnel and electrical components deployed in front of him. The force of the massive explosion seemed to rock the entire road. Jasper's truck swerved side-to-side as he tried desperately to maintain control of it. Alex was sent spinning off to one side on his bike with a deathly tight grip on the handlebars.

Up front, the other two missles plowed a hole through the next two roadblocks throwing up dirt and rock and dismembered ID-Sol limbs in their wake. Lucas' face remained tight as the truck sailed through the debris unharmed, and he continued pressing forward towards the next roadblock already in ruins from a missile attack of its own. Up ahead, they could see that only one roadblock remained, and it guarded the gates to Dock 234-DYA77, the convoy's best-guess destination.

And they had a tank.

Chrys did not manage to catch Id-sols head and her knee missed, just when trucked rocked itself a little and she had to catch balance. Id-sols maneged to pullhimself into the truck, he also still held her hand. "Bloody hell!" Chrys sweared and Id-sol tried to pull herself towrds him. It was her big disadvantage, she could hit hard and was very strong but as an Elysian, she was also very light. ID-Sol had easy time pulling Chrys to himself.

But Chrys was in this situation before and she knew how to act now, even when she was about to meet his palm. Pfft fancy palm strike, she thought as she let actually let ID-Sol pull her to him. She quickly took his striking hand, pulling it to the side so it won't cause her any harm as she even moved towards him on herself so her forehead could meet up with his nose. Meet really, really close.

Archie shook his head to clear the whiteness from his eyes before sitting back up. A little surprised himself that he was still breathing. He got a pat on the back and another rocket dumped on his lap, it seemed about as much thanks as he was going to get right now. He scooped up his new rocket launcher again and screwed the rocket in as he moved to take another shot from the back of the truck. Time for Round Two.

The second machine gunner finally rounded on the last barricade.

It had taken Ally a great deal of effort, more than her fair share of dexterity - and maybe the machine gun wasn't completely braced - but at least it was brought to bear. The tank wasn't going to notice the loss of a few paint chips, so instead Ally aimed for the personnel, holding the machine gun hard against her shoulder and doing her best to compensate for the rather off-putting full-auto recoil with a knee on the bed of the truck. Even then, her footing wasn't certain, and the tripod was only just barely hugging the brace. She was cursing viciously, though the report of the machine gun was drowning her out.

For the lip readers, it was essentially a lot of the word 'Fuck'. Such as, 'Fucking hell!' and 'Fuck your shit!' or 'This is fucking insane! We're all going to fucking die!'

Anyway, she kept on firing, regardless.

Rennik noticed what Ally was trying to do and he heaved a great sigh as he hauled himself up from his cover. He grabbed the weapon she was holding and raised the stock to a better position with her shoulder, as well as wresting her hand away from the trigger.
"CONTROLLED BURSTS!!" he roared over the noise of...everything. Or at least he tried to. He held onto part of the machine gun to help her steady it and he grabbed onto the ammo belt so it wouldn't jam

There was a brief moment of confusion.

Well, understantement; Alexis didn't know what the soldier, who had just grabbed her gun away from her, was doing or talking about - couldn't hear a single word. The moment he put his hands on it, and on her, she stopped firing and handed it over without much complaint, even though her knee jerk reaction was violence. There was no purpose to fighting over a weapon with an ally in the heat of a battle, and her shoulder was beginning to hurt anyway.

Instead, she unslung the GP-1, put a few paces' space between herself and Rennik - mostly by stumbling around in the bouncing truck bed - and braced herself in a crouch.

Deep breath...

Bam. Bam bam.

Bam bam bam bam...

It was the longest kilometer in the universe, that last stretch before everything finally hit the fan in a resounding chorus of fire, death, and doubtful physics. Time slowed down for Lucas behind the wheel of the massive truck rolling down the road so fast, he could've counted the lampposts as his sweat-covered hand pulled the steering wheel hard to the left. The tank in front if him stood still in the midst of the convoy plowing away towards it. Finally, at the last possible juncture, Lucas affected a change in the situation.

His sharp turn threw the truck and it's occupants away from the deadly barrel of the tank, but sliding still on two wheels towards a building. The squeal of brakes sang in the setting sun and the smell of charred rubber filled the already odiferous air. The stop threw everyone in the back of the first truck forward into the cab. Those further back took the most damage. Lang and Cage, because of the positions already up against the cab were the least damaged. However, they were quickly struck by Alexis on her trip to the front

This is why they were so quickly overrun by ID-Sols and soon pinned in the back of the vehicle by machine gun fire. The crash had tossed the GP-1 from Alexis and likewise the machine guns from the other two, so they had to rely on sidearms or risk recovering their weapons under fire.

The second truck had a little more time to prepare for the collision, so it narrowly avoided the roadblock and busted through the gate and onto the dock beyond. The ID-Sol aboard didn't fare swell, taking the full force of the the head butt directly on the chin. He wavered in place for a moment before getting his wits about him and breaking chrys' hold. Next he stepped back and raised his fists again, this time taking a defensive stance. The doctors and mechanics were beginning to stand up against the force of the moving vehicle and close in around the fight, raising weapons of their own.

The final truck in the convoy, still rattled from missle damage, and being pursued by the remaining battle pod was the worst hit. Jasper didn't even try to avoid the tank, instead electing to slam into it head on. Before he could take aim a the battle pod, Archie found himself face-first on the bed of the truck, sliding towards the cab with five to seven medium sized mobsters. The rest of the passengers were thrown from the vehicle upon collision to much worse fates. Fire began to break out in the cab, where Jasper was firing madly into the armor of the tank with a pulse pistol. Blood covered the ill-fated driver, gushing from a wound caused by being impaled by one of the spikes forming the tank's toothy grimace. The battle pod passed over the collision and circled around to make one more pass before finishing them off.

Alex was nowhere to be seen.

"You drive like a four year old sex slave!!!" Dimitri called out to the driver as he swerved out of the way of the tank, causing Dimitri to jerk in the opposite way of the movement. The truck went left, Dimitri went right, against the door, arm stretched out the open window, gun still at hand. With whatever force he could muster, he took the Zen .45 and aimed it at the few grunts that were standing at the barricade and shot at random, using it more as cover fire than aiming to take them out.

This thing was insane. What the hell had he gotten himself into? How the hell had they gotten a tank, the crazy bastards!? If he were driving he would've at least rammed the side of the truck against the side of the tank for insult, just to piss em off.

"Next time, I'm driving! You hear!?"

Chry staggered as the truck drove on through the blockade. She saw how Jasper drove right into the tank. What an hot-blooded idiot. She thought. But she had no time for this because the Id-Sol finally caught balance and went into defensive stance. That bastard knew how throw his fist, that much was clear.

"Enjoyin tentacle in the arse every night you bloody wanker?" She shouted and went at him. She wung her right hand in the nasty hook but that was just feint. In reality attack that shoudl hit was fast jab with her left hand into his neck.

Rennik let go of the machine gun he was helping steady for Alexis, and toppled into the cab of the truck, smashing the window, though not going entirely through it. Since he hit the cab first, he was able to prevent Lang from going through, though Rennik couldn't move under the tangle of...everything. He managed to shift himself to the side so he wasn't flattened between people and an open, narrow window.
The machine gun, and consequently Alexis, were less forgiving under the forces at hand, the machine gun slamming into his middle and Alexis compounding the blow, sending him through the cab window, where he knocked his head against the rim of the window. For the moment, Rennik was out cold...

Lang made himself as small as possible... a difficult feat with the Muur armor but it was his only option. Guessing the vector of the incoming fire he reached into his pack, his hand emerging with a NAM fragmentation grenade. He pitched it toward the nearest machine gunner.

For a brief few nanoseconds, Alexis was airborne. She could see the tank. She could see the people in front of her, and the broken glass, and possibly even bullets flying. Oh gosh, it all whizzed by. Narrow miss. It didn’t matter though, because Alexis was about to strike head first into a couple of seasoned shootists and a very unforgiving truck cab, and she could see it coming a mile away, and had no idea how to stop it. She threw her arms up, briefly and fleetingly wondering where her gun had gone, and tried to brace herself.

When she hit, she hit hard. Glass bit into her arm, the impact driving bits through her leather jacket. The impact against the heavily armored Lang knocked the wind out of her lungs, leaving her gasping. A sharp crack against something heavy – Alexis had shut her eyes so she didn’t know what she’d hit – bloodied her lip and gashed her face.

She just barely had the presence of mind to push herself back down into the truck bed, away from the entangled bodies and flying bullets, and keep her head down as her heartbeat filled her ears, and her only concern became wheezing for air. Automatically, she curled.

Lucas sat silently in response to Dimitri while hell unfolded around them. After a beat had passed, the enormous ID-Sol caught his breath and stood in the seat, turning to fire his gigantic revolver out the back window over the pile of dazed compatriots and into the approaching enemies beyond. The shots were loud, and most of them hit home, with devastating results. The machine gun fire was still peppering the back of the truck. The timer on Lang's grenade seemed to be taking an unusually long time.

In the back of the second truck now beyond the final roadblock and sitting safely on the docks, out of the way of the fray, Chrys' opponent was waiting patiently for her move, a tactic which proved quite useful. As she threw her punch, a meaty fist locked around her own and snatched her to the ground. The bloodied ID-Sol before her drew a sidearm as he hovered overhead with a fowl, twisted grin. He leveled the pistol with her head as he replied to her barb dramatically.

"Being an immortal and getting fresh Neko pussy every night makes it almost worth it, yours might make it up the rest of the way..." A wavering meaty hand stretched out, reaching for her waist. The barrel of his pistol dug into her scalp. Then, just as the fingers barely brushed her clothes, they quickly with drew back to the ID-Sol's face, where a scalpel had now found its home buried in his eye. Then a wrench made its way to his face. A white lab coat was wrapped around his neck. Within moments, the ID-Sol disappeared in a flurry of blood, medical supplies, and tools; to be covered by a cloud of men in labcoats and grease-covered jumpsuits. There was no stopping the enraged doctors and mechanics as they tore into the unfortunate would-be rapist. The ID-Sol could only be seen briefly between flashes of white and blue. A single sausage-sized finger escaped from the mass with a red contrail of blood behind it sailing off the side of the truck. The ID-Sol's hand emerged briefly from the group before being smacked back down by a spanner. Thanks to the animalistic rage of the nerds pushed too far, Chrys was safe and the ID-Sol was dispatched.

In the third truck, the fire was spreading. Jasper was nearly expired in the cab, immovable due to being pierced through the center by the massive pikes on the front of the NMX tank. His blood covered the now-charring seats in the cabe of his truck, but the mobster kept firing wildly into the tank's armor. The tank was not amused. It's cannon was entagled in the frame of the truck, perhaps the only thing keeping it from easily destroying the other two trucks. Massive rubber tires and steel wheels were lodged in its right tread, leaving it to do nothing but slowly spin itself and the truck in circles. The battle pod was close approaching again, this time fixed directly on Archie in the midst of the spreading cabin fire. It armed its machine guns, ignoring the risk of friendly fire, and narrowed its 'killzone' to only contain Archie.

Alex was still nowhere to be seen.
---

[Two Kilometers West, Leaving a Samuel Dalton Aeromotives Dealership]

A convoy of technicals pulled out of a parking lot, a massive Paragon Tank following close behind them. Leading the convoy was a technical driven by Angelo Barton, with Sammy Dalton at the gun. The other technicals followed behind in a rigid formation, with the kind of professional precision only offered by well-trained soldiers. As a donation to the fledgling resistance, Angelo Barton had hired on a single platoon of Paragon Contract Corps and purchased a tank for them to man. The rest of the platoon had been given technicals owned by Samuel Dalton. They were headed towards the dock to back up the squad, but it would be some time before they arrived.

Archival pulled himself from the tangle of limbs after the crash with much swearing from all parties involved. It was only when he stood up he realised how truly up a certain creek they really were. He saw the tank and then the battlepod turning to come down on them. Two targets, one rocket, but the right man.

“This is going to hurt.” he muttered to himself, then it was time to move. The old hunter sprang up to the top of the cab with surprising agility, between the spikes of the NMX tank and then leapt over the small gap to land on top of the tank itself, rocket launcher in hand. He stared back up at the battlepod in determination.

“Come on, ya bastard.” he murmured to himself as beneath him the tank still worried at getting that large truck off its nose. The battlepod zeroed in on him with a vengeance, its easy to say machines don't hate but this one seemed an exception to the rule. Archie waited, the battlepod bearing down on him, waiting for a sure shot.

When it almost appeared that the pod was simply going to run over Archie rather than shoot him the old hunter snapped the missile launcher up and fired. A line of white smoke spewing through the air towards the battlepod. It didn't take much to imagine an extremely surprised look in the battlepods single red eye, but it was only there for a second.

Despite an attempt to dodge the rocket skewered the pod right through the middle and exploded, turning the large machine into a flaming fireball still heading straight towards Archie. The hunters eyes widened and he turned to jump from the tank, flaming wreck closing in behind him.

Once they were past the blockade, Dimitri reared his arm back inside and reloaded the .45 Zen Arms gun. The bounty hunter turned to look at Lucas, then back at the road.

"How much further?" Dimitri was clearly pissed. He took out one of his cigarettes and put it to his mouth then flicked the opposite end of it, causing it to ignite as he took a drag.

Today was gonna be a long-ass day.

From the head of the convoy, Sammy Dalton could see the flames and wreckage of the dock coming over the horizon. He swallowed a lump in his throat as he noted that one of the wrecked vehicles was one of Alex's trucks. A new lump promptly appeared as he noted another light tank turning a corner into the crash site. Without showing his fear in his voice, he radioed the officer leading the Paragon troops behind him, "That's our target up ahead. Angelo and I will see to the wrecks, and we'd like it if you guys could kill everything that isn't in a truck or on an airbike."

"Roger that, all units be advised you are now weapons free, kill anything without an IFF" said the Captain leading the element of Paragon SCB commandos.

In the lead of the military convoy was a pickup truck being manned by two SCBs, both were wearing Impulse PAs and had their own weapons strapped onto their assault backpacks. Behind them were two more pickups and following close behind was a Havoc main battle tank. As they passed several wrecks they crested a hill which brought the lead vehicle into line of sight with the last road block. The gunner opened fire almost immediately as the vehicle sped toward the crashed truck, tracers dancing around any ID-SOLs bold enough to have been in the open. Behind the lead vehicle the other two pickups moved either slightly left or right giving their gunner's a clear line of sight on the tangos up ahead. Behind them the tank crested the hill and it's crew automatically engaged the heaviest target.. the new mishhu light tank. The massive vehicle fired before the mishhu could even react, sending a 125mm SABOT shot screaming over its own vehicles and into the hostile tank. The shot was a direct hit, and it rocked the tank hard, chewing a hole right through the armor, and alerting it the the presence of another tank in the field.

Angelo swerved to avoid the fire of the truck and tank behind him and pulled around to the truck entangled in the tank. Sammy and Angelo hopped down from their truck and started dragging those lucky enough to survive the blast away from the truck. They could see Archi on the other side, jumping from the tank. Up above, the damaged battle-pod was closing in while Angelo and Sammy tossed limp and unconscious bodies into the back of their pick-up. There was a flash and a clap from the truck that filled their ears with bell tones as the battlepod that Archie had hit just moments ago smashed into the twisted wreckage of the truck-tank love-fest. The damage from the crash had put the tank out of commission, and finally put Jasper out of his misery in the cab of the burning truck.

Lang's ears were ringing but this didn't stop him from laughing, he recognized the roar of his company's tank. The sound of MG-32s spraying automatic fire, he keyed his mic.

"This is Colonel Lang, damn good shot however that was!" he practically shouted as he dragged Alexis and Rennak from the wreaked truck toward the waiting pickup, both were out of it.

Lucas tapped Dimitri and pointed towards the technicals coming up before saying, "We're getting out of this death trap, and that's all the further I know about!" Without checking for a response, the ID-Sol kicked open the door and hopped out of the driver's seat, flinging shots downwind to the enemy ID-Sols beyond, and covering Lang's escape in the process.

The lead technical pulled in between the tank turned funeral pyre and the buildings were the fire was originating from, the gunner proceeded to put at least twenty rounds through any opening or window. Hostiles returned fire, either punching holes in the truck or pinging off the Impulse's shields. Behind them the other two vehicles had also stopped, positioned to provide cover fire and cover. In the rear the Havoc steadily moved up, scanning each building and using canister shots if it received fire, effectively silencing any hostiles in the rear.

(Edit: Made it less 'hard-to-look-at' esque. Also added a new tank to the mix so we could shoot one without turning Archie into paste. Sorry Arieg, Sorry Jimmy, Sorry Self-confidence.)

Chrys sat looking at what was transpiring in front of her. Big muscle head being ripped to shreds by bunch of nerds and geeks. That is something you just don't see. Chrys was not one to dwell on her failures and just started to laugh out loud. She can worry about how he got on her later, now she will just unjoy the show and won't be worrying about almost getting raped.

When it was done she stood up giving people around her thumbs-up. "Good job Eggheads. I owe you all a drink. Wait here I am going to check the others." She said, picked up her shotgun and jumped of the truck. She quickly loaded one shell she fired earlier. Better be safe then sorry.

She was half-way there towards the battle when giant explosion happened. Some hit the tanks and Chrys got there justi n time to see some new peopel draggin injured Tibbers aways and battlepod flying into wreckage. She saw that they lost one truck. It must have been Jasper. Poor sod, he was stupid but he saved them in the end by immobilizing the tank. Chrys put her shotgun on her back and ran to first truck jumping on the flatbed.

She picked up both Machineguns and ammo for them and then ran to Lucas. "Techies and egghead are safe. Or well as sage as they can be. We got through and made it to the pier. They are waiting there. I am running back to them you take this Captain Loud." She said and gave Lucas one of the machineguns. She then took her own and sprinted back to techies.

The edge of Alexis's vision was turning a strange sort of white, and it made the battlefield hard to follow.

Carefully, she pulled herself up and over the lip of the truck bed, landing on the ground clumsily and ducking down away from the firing. Her hand found the rubberized grip of the .22LR, for all the good it was going to do her in this situation. Briefly she searched the surrounding area for her rifle, but it had been thrown somewhere out of her current line of vision, and the blood was dripping into her right eye - her shooting eye - anyway. She wiped it out, stifling a cry and wincing as the movement shifted the shards in her arms and sent a shiver of pain knotting through her spine. This was miserable. Fighting against a bunch of brainwashed ID-SOLs wasn't what she had signed on for.

With as much presence of mind as she could muster, she checked the cylinder of the revolver for a full five shots, and then snapped it back with a slow flick of her wrist. The adrenaline was stealing away her dexterity and made her feel weak and shaky.

Something stirred in the rubble in front of her, and in a split second she had put three bullets into it. It didn't matter if it was a friendly or not; the fact it turned out to be an enemy blown clear of the tank and entangled truck by the explosion turned out to be a relief, even if a brief one. Alexis scooted back away from the resulting corpse, her boots finding enough purchase in the rubble.

Even as the battle became one-sided, she found that her breath was coming in gulps, and that was where her concentration went. If she could just breathe regularly, again, it would all be alright.